The Train Graveyard
by Sinful-Metaphor
Summary: Their relationship was always a little too different. But they are young, it doesn't have to make sense. A first-person narrative about love in all its forms. T rated, with mild references to serious matters. Cloud/Zack. Enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I own the plot, nothing else.

**The Train Graveyard **

_By Sinful-Metaphor_

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><p>The year was 1975.<p>

Vincent Price was still alive, though not nearly as fresh he had been a century ago, and David Bowie enjoyed the glamour and vices of living the life of a criminal in drag. It was a simpler time, when punks stood up for their beliefs and people didn't give a damn. Joanna zigzagged through the rain, pretending to miss the teardrops. It was _a_ _stupidly_ _funny_ pastime of hers, but not in that cold morning of November. Not with that claustrophobic baby inside her, kicking the inner wall of her uterus and demanding to be fed and cleaned and pampered, as the plump gentle hospital nurse would later predict.

I wouldn't gamble on that one. As a child I hated being pampered just as much as I hated wet willies or chocolate and nuts. Which was a lot. Human contact took some years to grow on me, and it was not until late into my adulthood that I found out why was that of any good.

Still. I was indeed claustrophobic, so it might have been that.

The delivery was exhausting, the seventeen year-old girl barely surviving to hear the loud screams of conquered freedom. Seven years later, over a mug of sweet coffee and biscuits, she would then admit she had been practising at home, a couple of days before the final performance, so that her moans and gasps for dear breath sounded right – sounded real – and she couldn't feel second to anyone.

I grew up to the sound of T. Rex and The Beach Boys, and other rock 'n' roll crap Grandma Grace kept smoking her cigar to. She was a fine lady.

For many years Sid Vicious was the bassist I wanted to become, and I simply assumed I would die at the age of twenty-one just like him, only seventeen years later. I even tried to dye my hair black when I was sixteen but _he_ said he wouldn't bear to lose sight of my golden locks. So I remained a blond through the eons of sawdust and silence that were yet to come.

He was the shadow that haunted my sleepless nights in my excuse of a bedroom, in a room that would be better served as a pantry. Back in Little Traverse our house was smaller than average, like most of those that together brought Chocobo Street to life. What a stupid name for a street, I always thought…

"Cloud, you Chocobo!" he barked out loud from the midfield, throwing the rugby ball high into thin air, aiming at my unprotected body and oblivious mind.

And as soon as my name and his ball were launched, the defensive team ran wildly and blindly at me, scoring my face on the mud with the care and gentleness of an elephant. This was what civilised people called a playful, made-up ball game between friends. I called it Doormat. For obvious reasons.

"Sorry 'bout that. You alright?" he outstretched a hand to help me up. I took it.

"Didn't break a tooth or nothing" it was a sappy ungrammatical response that made him smirk. Or maybe he was just mocking my face covered in dirt, which had been reasonable and excusable enough.

We walked side by side out of the open field that belonged to no one, though Cid often claimed it as his own as the natural leader he was when it came to pointless things such ball games. The sole purpose of me ever joining them was to spend time away from a so-called household I no longer recognised. Joanna's boyfriend had ruined it for me. The endless death row.

"It is the only way to get your attention, you know?" he then explained, resting his folded arms on the back of his raven-haired head and shooting me a fleeting glare.

We'd started to climb up the road, me still hands in pockets. I refused to get them out most of the time, as my uncontrolled habit of biting my nails had placed me in the awkward position of a sensible ten year-old towards how ugly his hands really looked. More so when covered in mud and dirt from falling and falling, over and over again in that court.

"Where does it go?" he asked very matter-of-factly.

"What?" I asked back, quizzically.

"Your mind. All the time, wandering away…" he said, stopping on his feet with his eyes locked ahead.

I first thought him to be meditating on his own question, as if some bewildered philosophical matter only 6th graders understood. But then I heard the noisy, childish racket in front and ultimately understood he didn't want us to join the rest of them. The kids that had been playing Doormat with us just a few minutes before. They had stopped by Tellah's convenience store for sweets and soft drinks, and Cid patrolled each and every pocket to collect the necessary pennies.

Again, I entered and left the scene with little effort. I knew half of those kids from school, two or three from Chocobo Street, and the rest of them – the older ones – front those weekly encounters in the open filed. They meant nothing to me and I meant nothing to them.

"Hey!" he nearly shouted, nudging me on the side "See? You keep spacing out," he said.

I shrugged, gripping the insides of my pockets. "Sometimes I like to entertain myself," I answered.

He chuckled and shoved his hands deep into his pockets as well. Something people like us did a lot, maybe?

"I'm not picking you to be part of the team next Saturday." he said, resuming his walking.

I believe my eyes outstretched in shock then. "Because they tackled me once?" I asked.

"Not once. All the time." he laughed.

"Well, of course they did. You kept yelling my name!" I began to follow his steps again.

He looked back over his shoulder, a sprite-like smirk catching me red-handed. It was the very first smile I had noticed on him, the one that only later I learnt to reveal his elfin thoughts in the most devilish and bluntest way. It stood about only for a second or two…

_I like saying your name_, it said.

Most of the times I didn't understand half of our conversations.

First I blamed it on him who dragged way too much sense into things. Then I began to blame it on me, partially from being younger than him and most likely not as wiser, partially from spacing out a lot. Which I did and went on doing for years hence. Our subjects never changed much, though. We talked either of rugby or TV programmes that really sucked but that we did watch anyway. Sometimes we talked of Grandma Grace, but only the necessary to laugh a little and then stop. She was a bit of a magic woman; she could hear us anywhere for all we knew.

It was during a rainy afternoon of springtime that I learnt she had been an actress once. In Bone Village, she had explained, stressing the name with a husky accent that could've been French.

"I was about to embrace the world…" she said, exhaling the strong scent of her cigarette which she held tight and gracefully between a bonny wrinkled forefinger and index. The turquoise and crimson feathers around her neck would breathe-in that smoke, embedding it till it became Grace's natural scent.

"Why didn't you, then?" I asked, minding my tiptoes, butt freezing on the cold floor.

Grandma Grace sucked a deep breath, smashed the cigarette on the oak ashtray. Then, she laughed.

"Well, Greta Garbo and alike moved in to America and fucked some old entrepreneurs that would open them doors just as they opened their legs!" gulped down the last of her gin "It's a shit world."

"It's a shit world," I repeated to myself, not because it made perfect sense but because I had liked the sound. And I would repeat it again and again, light-years from that cosy afternoon in the living-room, and they would finally make sense.

Because Grace, you were right all along.

Except for Greta Garbo, Joanna would complain, and I would then realise that I had succumbed to the feminine sphere that was my social life.

We were strong then, and I never quite understood why Joanna needed an outsider to feel it.

The day he entered our lives, purring like a skilled cat, changed everything. She had met him back in January, 1984. I was nine and clueless. He drank martini at breakfast and read Aristotle and Plato, knew Latin and Italian, talked of cashmere as if it was a woman with voluptuous breasts and dark, almond eyes. He wore reading glasses and amused her with his impressions of dead people she had never heard of.

Sephiroth had conquered her heart over _escargot_ and dry toasts. One year later he was moving in with us, buying me jumpers and pretending to care for my school projects. One year later he was drinking too much, locking Joanna for days in the bedroom and telling me too fuck off of adult's business.

This was when I started spending time outside, leaving early in the morning and arriving late into the night, having eaten already at Grace's.

It was tiresome but it had been sustainable, see? If only he hadn't beaten me up once, because some older kids had taken my lunch money and stolen my bright-red parka and he thought I should have fought back. I did, actually, but they laughed and disappeared into the snow.

He beat me then and he beat me during the following weeks, mostly because the first time had felt nice.

I only cried once about it: the day that changed my life. And Zack's.

It was the middle of December and everyone else was worried about Jesus. Honestly, I wasn't…

He decided that we should make a snowman contest, just the two of us, and see which one was better –something he explained to me with some strangely complicated expressions like _virile dominance_.

I didn't want to do it because I felt stupid playing with the cold snow when I could've been drinking eggnog and warming my feet with thousands of socks. If I were to wear boots instead, I couldn't dress thousands of socks – it was simple math!

"Come on, you little fucker. We have to define our status somehow," he said and laughed. And I laughed too, only to realise I had not understand a word.

"Why is that so important?" I then asked. It sounded like a plausible question inside my head.

"Because…" he kicked the snow about. Lightly. "There can't be two alpha lions in the same pride."

I drove a skeletal cold hand to my mouth and started biting my nails again.

He chuckled, perhaps innocently unaware of the fact he loved the concerned, albeit generous way I ruined my fingers.

"Still makes no sense to me," I finally said.

"Don't make me hit you" he said, squatting on the snow and picking up a handful.

I sighed, folded my arms. "I could've been older than you. People wouldn't tell the difference."

He smiled, "Let's get this over with, so I can take you there with me."

"Where to?" I asked, squinting.

"The Sanctuary." he said in a mutter, and I knew right away what he was talking about.

Of course Zack won the contest. I could have won it too if I wanted, but I really didn't feel like bending over the frozen snow and grabbed it so many times. I did, however, because he asked me to, and because he promised me he would take me to see the Train Graveyard as soon as he declared himself the winner. It was fast and pointless, but he seemed truly happy at the result.

Something to do with the virile dominance, I suppose.

We then left his front garden, which was beautifully fenced and taken care of, and accelerated our pace towards the Lower District and town centre, both equally lit up and decorated for Christ's sake – literally. The graveyard was _just around the corner_, behind the industrial area and the thick charcoal cloud of smoke that protected it. And once in the graveyard we could still see it hovering up and towards the sky, melting into the white clouds, colouring them grey and forlorn.

The dying and dead trains whispered as we crossed the bright-yellow sign that read NO TRESPASSING, capital red letters and all. Their rusty chains bristled with the wind and their unlocked broken doors stuttered, wondering whether or not we were welcome.

Later I would understand Zack and I were always welcome wherever normal people weren't, wherever God's eye didn't reach.

Wherever sound took the shape of colours and love was love in whatever form.

"Wicked, isn't it?" were his first uttered words.

I didn't answer. Couldn't bring myself to…

It was decay and loneliness, abandon and freedom. It smelled of burnt oil and rubber, of decomposing metal and something acid I couldn't quite put my finger on. Age, maybe. The snow huddled around their rails and feet, softening their fall into oblivion, tucking them in at night, kissing their forehead. The dead ones, the dying ones, the lost ones.

And I saw Sephiroth's spiteful sneer, his contemptuous hand reaching out towards the golden locks that Zack would learn to love so much, his coarse mouth spitting every ugly name I already knew of and those I was to understand the meaning of later on. And I saw Joanna in the doorway, crying for me, unable to stop it. I saw him too, in his usual chestnut parka and jeans, a childlike smile calling for my mind again, because I had spaced out again.

And I finally cried.

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><p><em>I'll keep uploading if you want me to :)<em>

_On a side note: I use a lot of time references that don't belong to same decade or country but that I take as universal knowledge - such as The Beach Boys or David Bowie. It's not comparing apples and oranges, it actually has a reason._


	2. Chapter 2

_I was reading some stories I had once published when I realised my narrative technique just randomly changed. I've never seen something similar around here either, so I'm wondering if it works. Oh well. You tell me. Thank you __**Lollita**__ for the review – I uploaded mainly because of you, although I was quite amused to know Zack and Cloud still have some followers (at least according to my Stats)._

_**Disclaimer**__: I own the plot and Grandma Grace. Enjoy._

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><p>.<p>

I knew the frenetic knock on the door was a bad omen as soon as it echoed through the dirty-white walls of our house. My eyes didn't rise from _The Twits_ as I pretended the world outside that undersized bedroom did not exist. Sephiroth tried to knock my door down as he walked the hallway through – a warning, probably. He must have reached the entrance door eventually. I heard her voice from the hall, growing stronger and bolder by the spit.

"Where's Cloud?" she asked, her footsteps getting closer.

"Oh, picking the boy up, are we? That's how little you think your life's worth?" he scorned.

I couldn't hear her answer, if she ever gave him one. I walked over to the doorway and held the knob with a trembling hand, biting the nails of the other. She knocked.

"C'mon darling, grab a few things. You're spending Christmas with me!" she said, livid yet.

"What about my mother?" the words came as a mutter.

Edea caressed my forehead with a cold hand. Her purpled-glossed lips tried to smile, and I instinctively knew whatever word came next would be a lie.

"She is coming over later. Don't you worry."

Edea was Joanna's father's first daughter and Grandma Grace's only child. They looked alike.

Her eyes were big and emerald-green, her skin of a porcelain-white. She was a novelist, a poet, and always wore dark sunglasses no matter the weather. She was also a lesbian out of the closet and spent most of her lifetime pursuing her lovers across the globe, living passionate and fortuitous encounters under the stars and drinking _port,_ only to wake up to an empty hotel room, a _thank you _note written with lipstick.

She was a friend so I took her hand and left.

Funnily enough, it was not as much of a crappy Christmas as most people would think. I felt strangely complete for a little while, until I thought of Zack and my stomach mewled.

We didn't eat turkey because Edea was a vegetarian, even though Grandma Grace sternly refused to eat of the same grass and eventually prepared some pork chops. I was silently thankful for that. We watched _Pride and Prejudice _twice in a row and Edea nearly cried to how beautiful Greer Garson was. There were no lights around the Christmas Tree and it was not until late into the night that I realised there was no baby Jesus in the manger either.

"William ate the damn child last year." Grace later explained. William was the dog.

"He ate a piece of porcelain?" I asked, not believing her.

"Oh yes," she said and took a last drag of her cigar. "It was a terrible mess when he pooped it out."

The nativity figures were never the same after that, I might add.

I woke up to the sound of his voice the following morning. He was waiting outside in the garden, gloved hands in his pockets and a knitted hat that almost covered his eyes. I later discovered Joanna had told him where I had spent the night, and I was happy to learn she was home at last.

There was no time to wash my drowsy face properly. He was to be home soon, still had a lot of things to do before leaving to Icicle Inn – to his grandparents' – where he would spend the 25th.

But first he needed to ask me something, something I didn't quite understand then.

"Will you come and live with me when we're older?" he asked, sitting on the fenced wall that separated Edea and Grace's world from the rest of misery.

"Why wouldn't I?" I asked back, "When we're older we can do whatever we want."

"Just like the song." he laughed and mumbled a few words of _Wouldn't it be Nice_.

I smiled. "Well, would you rather live with me or by yourself?" to me it was simple.

He shrugged. "I just don't want you to be alone, that's all…"

His voice was grave; it was changing already, giving in to puberty as the imperceptible acne that was starting to appear on his forehead. I finally understood why he wore his hat so pulled down, nearly over his eyes. I hadn't thought of that before.

I kept biting my thumb. "It's easy then, isn't it?" I muttered.

"Yeah, you're right." he said with a smile, stretching his back as he stood up. "Don't forget!"

I smiled back and saw him finally taking off, running down the road trying to keep his balance above the tricky snow. And I kept on looking until he turned right and I lost sight of him.

I couldn't know then what drove me to wait outside in the cold for the following fifteen minutes. I bit my nails and I kicked the snow about and I shook my head to prevent the scarce drizzle from pouring in. I entered the house just in time for the real rain to kick in.

Edea was waiting for me by the kitchen table with butter biscuits and a mug of hot chocolate.

Her dark hair was a mess and her dishevelled nightgown revealed the upper part of her light-blue bra beneath. She wanted to know why Zack hadn't come in like he used to, and I said he was a bit in a hurry.

"Just wanted to know if I would move in with him." I explained with my mouth full.

"Oh… That's a little unexpected." she said, half amused and half clueless. "And what did you say?"

"Said it was ok I guess," and took a long gulp of chocolate.

I wasn't quite sure she had understood the situation, since she only laughed for a while and then excused herself into the bathroom. Then again, even I didn't know what to think of it, seeing as we still had a long time before «being older» became a problem. Or did we?

He, for one, didn't seem to wait much longer.

By the age of fifteen, when he finally entered Avalanche High School, I was the one who had lost my balance towards him. He no longer wasted his Saturdays playing Doormat and walking me home, taking the longest way. He put aside his chestnut parka and began to wear denim jackets and silver chains around his wrists – called it an _American thing_, but I've never been to America. Suddenly he started to worry about not growing a moustache and having too light skin. He even smoked a few times, during our lonely afternoons in the Train Graveyard.

I said to him once that I liked his light skin and I liked that he couldn't grow a moustache and I mocked his chains and called them stupid.

He called me childish.

Then I began to realise how I missed him. Not the new _him_ but the one he was replacing, little by little.

I would sat by the window sill and breathe out towards the glass, blurring my sight and creating some sort of temporary writing surface. I liked this technique because as soon as I wrote down whatever crossed my mind, the word would melt as the vapour turned to water. And no one would ever read it.

_Come back_. _Come back_. I always wrote the same, until the day Joanna caught the words from behind me and I recoiled in my embarrassment, promising myself I would never think of it again.

Zack would stop by less and less as time went by.

Edea said it was normal in boys his age to create a world of their own in which true friends didn't usually have a place.

"Like women on the Rebound!" she explained, almost enthusiastically. I had no idea what that meant.

Nothing she said made sense to me.

Why would he hide from me behind walls when we were friends? More so when I was his closest friend – or the only one, as I later came to understand. And how come I wasn't building my own world of manhood, when I was only two years younger? What difference did a number make?

It was something that puzzled me to no end.

I started hanging around with Cid's boys more often, the ones that were left.

I still didn't like them much, thought them too stupid and almost bizarre, but Joanna convinced me bad people always turned out to be good. Maybe that was why she waited so long for Sephiroth to change…

Adaptation was tragic. I was news and they mocked me for it – you're too small, you're too clean, you're too thin, you're too white, you're too quiet. All I could hear was: you are completely different from us.

I was labelled the Pussy because I sucked at football and was always worried about my hands. In other words I was the girl of the group, something I believe they would have called me then if they had the slightest clue of what kind of specimen a girl was. Barret Wallace was the only kid in the crew that showed some sympathy, normally patting me on the back every time they pushed the rope too tight.

He was a bulky friendly negro the average person would be terrified to run into in a dark alley. His weight and worn clothes made him look older, his combat boots made him feel heavier. He lived with his oldest sister in a part of Little Traverse I was not allowed to go – Barret himself said he was a marginal.

"I'm more of a social outcast," was my answer when he first said it.

"Can see why. What kind of dude yells out in the middle of a game that his hair is falling off?" he said.

"I was trying to amuse myself!" I said, handing him over the ball.

He laughed almost grotesquely. "Hey, no judge. But in the middle of a ball game?"

"Get to know me, pal. I'm fucking weird." and we laughed together, as if the sound of it could restore to light the innocence we had already lost, and the one we were chosen to lose.

I never thought my friendship with Barret could have grown the way it did if he wasn't the person he was. If he wasn't chubby and poor and dark and pure. He protected me into and through the years, from Cid's boys in the open field to real High school bullies. Sometimes he protected me from Zack, not really sure of what he was protecting me from.

Sometimes he protected me from me.

I was confronted once about it, right in the middle of the road when Zack stopped on his feet and turned.

"Who the hell is Barret?" he asked, cutting me off.

"Used to play Doormat with us. The strong one." I said, chewing the lace in my sweatshirt.

He made a scoffing sound. "Right, right. So you're friends now." he repeated.

"We play football together sometimes. Not every day." I shrugged and resumed my walking.

His hand around my elbow stopped me once again. I turned around to a face I didn't quite recognise, a face I hadn't seen or talked to for weeks.

"You can't like him more than me." he said, nearly apologetic.

"I don't," I said.

"You can't tell him about the Sanctuary." he muttered.

"I won't," I said.

"You can't cry in front of him." his eyes lifted towards me.

"Of course not," I said. His hand loosed its grip.

He smiled. "That's alright then."

I knew then that, somehow, I had opened the door and was finally breaking into the new world he was creating. The one in which true friends usually didn't have a place. But I did.

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><p><em>Keep the author alive: give me your opinion, will you? Ah, that would be great.<em>

_PS: As Cloud and Zack grow older I'll tend to concentrate more chapters on their relationship only, and not just these fragmented pieces that we now see. _


	3. Chapter 3

_I'm sorry for the delay. College has been a serious pain. Oh, hi there. A big hug and kiss for those who are still with me, and thank you for the most encouraging reviews. I always update for you. Please let me know what you think of the little chapter, and any question/suggestion is rather well-received :)_

**Disclaimer**: _I own very few things, mainly the plot and Grandma Grace. _

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><p>.<p>

I reckon it all started with Aerith. Not in an obvious manner or anything: it just started. He was the first one to feel it – somehow he was always the first at things. Maybe I was too young to understand it. I remember Zack complaining a lot that I was too slow at figuring stuff out; important stuff. I couldn't help but notice, however, that he never did the least effort to explain them to me. He just assumed I should ultimately understand them the way he did.

Maybe that was the reason he got so angry at me that day. Oh, he was angry.

It was the day he ran into a dirty magazine around the house – his dad's probably, for Mrs Fair was the kind of person who would only touch her own husband with her eyes closed.

We were in the Graveyard.

The sun never seemed to reach that side of town, which meant the metal was cold more so than dead.

We sat on opposite ends of an open goods wagon, me with my knees bent to my chest, Zack with one leg hanging loosely out of the train.

"Just look at this one! You can nearly see the insides of it!" he burst into laughter, breaking the silence.

"Sounds disgusting," I said, not looking up from my sketches. He kept turning pages.

"Yeah… I assume it's not the same to having the _real _thing…" he smirked.

That kind of matter confused me, so I chose not to say anything.

Slowly, I whistled to the tune inside my head – _Telegram Sam_, I think – and began to tap my feet to the rhythm. It distracted me, of course. My charcoal stopped moving and I lost my trail of thought. It happened all the time. As usual now, he didn't bother asking me what I was drawing.

I looked down at my boots and thought maybe it was time to buy another pair – maybe ones with laces like the older boys used them. Like his.

"Look up!" he called, and I instantly felt the sharp magazine hitting me on the face.

He laughed.

"I don't wanna see it…!" I complained.

"You're such a pansy. Just look at it," he grumbled, saving his hands in his pockets.

I did look, only because his eyes were haunting me with scorn. A naked woman with ridiculous breasts and orange-coloured hair laid on a pool table with her legs wide open and a devilish smirk, as if someone had been spying on her dirty deeds.

My eyes lingered for a moment, but my body got no reaction.

"Did you know they could stretch like that?" he asked, outstretching an arm and trying to grab a loose cable that hanged above his head.

"Must hurt the few first times…" I said. Silence compelled me to wait.

"Don't you feel weird…? Looking at it, that is…"

I shook my head and thought deeply for a moment, eyes still on the naked woman.

"Do you think Aerith can stretch hers like this?" I then asked.

Zack left the plastic cable be and spitted to the ground beside him at once. His dark eyebrows narrowed closer when he turned to me, his aqua-blue eyes nearly becoming grey.

"Why are you asking me that?" he said.

"Aerith is a girl, isn't she? She might be able to."

I saw a small cloud of dust lifting from the ground as he stood up. He helped himself out of the open wagon and zipped up his flight jacket – it was a hideous thing but everyone had one.

"And how should I know? She's _your _friend, ask her yourself." he said.

I squinted, watching his restless moves.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Home."

"Why?"

"You annoy me!"

"Don't forget your magazine…" I warned, pretending he hadn't upset me.

He chuckled. "I'm 15. Do you really think I'll need that shit? That's a kid's magazine."

And I watched him stride along the railway towards the fence, hop the wall in front the bright-yellow sign and disappear. I felt like I could have run after him, apologise for whatever I had said and hand the stupid dirty magazine back to its rightful owner.

I was, indeed, naive. I couldn't have known back then that the jealousy bite had struck him. He couldn't stand it, the fact Aerith and I spent every school morning together, sharing little notes under the table. He couldn't stand that he never understood our conversations during our journeys home, that we read Shakespeare in unison by the candle light…

And yet, until the day he confronted me about it, I had never thought of our time together as anything other than friendship. I felt gravely stupid then.

Edea was the one to alert me. _He might feel excluded sometimes_, she said.

"He has his own friends too!" I complained, looking up from my drawing book with menacing eyes.

She chuckled, amused, and squeezed into my bed.

"That's really nice. Who is it?" she asked, leaning closer. I eyed her, suspicious.

"Can't you tell?"

She shook her head. "Someone I know?"

"Maybe I'm failing miserably…" my hands were freezing under the blanket.

She chuckled, with the tip of her tongue out. "Why so? It's just a draft. I bet I'll recognise it in the end."

I shrugged, closed the notebook. "Guess so."

Edea pulled the duvet up to her chin and swung her body for a while. She was an unusual Edea that night: a silent Edea. And she had been quiet for some weeks now.

I didn't turn to that sketchbook for one whole month. And Zack and I didn't talk for one whole month either. It had been a childish fight but I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. And I wouldn't give in. I just… didn't want to give up either.

Finally it was the 17th of November, the day Edea baked her special chocolate and vanilla cheesecake and let me clean the cooking bowl with my tongue. It was my birthday after all.

"Zack is coming for dinner, right?" Joanna counted the plates on the table for the twentieth time.

"Dunno." I muttered from the couch.

"Well, you ought to pick him up then. I made pumpkin bread." she smirked.

I squinted, turning my eyes away from the television. "So what? I like pumpkin bread too…"

She threw me one of her funny faces and returned to the kitchen, only to reappear a second later and order me to go buy some beers. Classic. Whoever said women didn't drink as much as men, clearly never met enough women. Those three together drank more in one night than most men I came to know would drink in a week or two.

Grace turned on the radio, her Shostakovich's Waltz No.2 gradually consuming the room. She nudged me and pointed a skeletal forefinger to her feathery wallet above the sideboard.

I leaned closer to her lips.

"Stop by Pedro's and buy me one or two…" - she made the smoking gesture with her hand.

"I thought you were to quit smoking cigars, Grandma…" I whispered back.

She snickered. "That's the joy of being old. You can lie all you want, people will just think you're senile."

"Well…" I grabbed her wallet "Which brand do you want?"

Grace tried to laugh but only a dry cough came out.

"Like I only smoke _Montecarlo_!" she waved a hand in the air – "Just buy me one of 'em plains. They taste awful, like an injection on the forehead, but eh… gets the job done."

A fine, fine lady.

I tightened the scarf around my neck before I reached the doorway. It was a quarter to seven already, and twilight broke through with the voice of high winds. The thick fog covered each corner, melted my sight into nothing. Not that I needed that. I knew the way like the palm of my hand. Still, I had to make it to the town centre before the hour, otherwise both the convenience store and Pedro's would be closed.

I sharpened my pace.

The Lower District was the worst part. People weren't nice there and the streets were too steep, too narrow and smelled funny. My heart nearly stopped when a dark shadow crossed my way, likely out of nowhere.

I instantly drove my fingers to my lips.

"Stop doing _that_!" he clapped the hand away from my mouth.

"Geez! You really scared me there!" I snarled – "What are you doing here?"

I feared that my voice would sound too shaky but I did ask him anyway. Somehow, I wanted to make sure he had a very good reason to be missing my birthday dinner. Or better yet: a good reason not to say anything for weeks, not even on my birthday…

"Feeding the cats. You?" he asked, matter-of-factly.

"I need some— Wait, which cats?" he stretched his lips in a smile and reached for my wrist.

When we turned left against the fog, I finally understood where he had come from.

An alley, of course. A gritty alley dividing two old buildings of very poor quality; puddles of rainwater collected on the pavement. But at least I had my boots.

Zack squatted before a pile of tyres, whistled for them in a melody only they could recognise, and one by one the three little pussies began to reveal themselves. So small, so weak. I nearly fell for the urge to hold them all. As I leaned to do it, Zack forced me to squat down beside him.

"Don't, their mother's watching…" he whispered.

"The mother…?"

He waved upward towards the mess of cardboard boxes beside us. Skeptical, I followed his eyes to find a majestic black cat, bibelot-like, with the yellowish-green eyes sternly focused on our movements.

I chuckled without a sound, "I feel like an intruder…" I muttered.

"Yeah, it's awkward the first couple of times." he laughed.

My fingers met my lips again. "That's not what I mean…" I said.

He squinted, turning to look at me. "Then what?"

I shrugged, "Feels like we barely talk now… Because of a magazine, I think…?"

He scoffed, punching me with his shoulder. "Happy birthday, Chocobo! I meant to call you early."

"Yeah…" I shrugged again.

He held my hand so I would stop eating my fingers. "I don't like when you do _this._" he lifted our hands together – "Look how ugly it looks."

I chuckled, sarcastic. "Fourteen year-olds don't care for pretty hands."

"Hey, I haven't got you a present yet!" he said, very naturally.

I noticed the way he returned his attention to the little cats again, smiling at the way they stepped all over each other to find a comfortable way to sleep.

"I don't need presents." I said. And I meant it.

He shook his head. "I ought to give you something…"

And then it was fairly quick. One of his hands reached for my squatted knee, he leaned closer. His lips were warm. I remember doing nothing.

A kiss, soft and soundless, on the cheek.

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><p><em>Keep the author alive: give me your opinion, will you? Ah, that would be great.<em>


	4. Chapter 4

_Hello everybody. Just a short update to remember you I'm alive. Barely. Thank you for the amazing reviews ~ I wish there were more xD But honestly, I would give you a box full of homemade heart-shaped cookies if I knew what I was doing every time I touch the stove. On with the story._

_**Disclaimer**: I own the plot and Grandma Grace._

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><p>.<p>

I finally understood that gloom of hers, her blank expression and distant gaze, her silent spirit. I first thought it to be me, honestly, thought maybe she was tired of dealing with me around the house so much. Sephiroth was in no position to leave Joanna's any time soon, and Grace demanded that I left the house for a while, until the storm cooled off.

Joanna took the order lightly, said it was probably for the best…

She would stop by sometimes, have a cup of coffee, watch an Anthony Asquith's every now and then. It was nice the first couple of times, until the day her eyes began to change and Edea realised my presence in their house had grown meaningless to her. To my own mother. Grandma Grace said it was his entire fault. _He's changing her fibre_, she had said between the smoke.

Later I came to learn Edea's lover was in the hospital, in a coma for three whole months…

Her name was Scarlet and she was an actress in the Midgarian underground – or so Edea claimed. I had seen her name before it came into my actual lexicon. Edea owned thousands of independent films, from every director possibly imagined, and I remember spotting Scarlet Shinra's name a good share of times. How Edea got in contact with her in the first place, I doubt I will ever know.

"She has a son of Cloud's age, you know? I can tell right away they will get along fine!"

"Didn't you say she had a daughter?" I muttered, amid her enthusiasm.

"Yes, yes, that too." Edea bit her lip, thoughtful – "Nineteen, I think."

"Well… Divorced twice, a son of Cloud's age, plus a nineteen year-old girl, looking to settle down…" a breath "I would say this woman is losing her hair already."

"Mum!" Edea complained with a laugh. "She is a wonderful creature!"

Grace scoffed in her armchair by the window, "A creature? Like a fossil?" I laughed. "Besides, weren't they _all_ wonderful creatures?"

Edea locked a dark tress behind her ear, a soft little smile curling in a corner of her lips.

"But Scarlet's different. I know she is…" she whispered.

This was back in 87' and now another year had passed. We've met on the beach – Scarlet, her daughter and Rufus.

I never went to the sea much when I was a kid, mostly because I never remembered to, and secondly because the ocean laid three centuries away from Little Traverse. Or nearly as much. I was six when I first tried to wet my tiptoe in the cold waters of Costa del Sol, and thirteen the day I was able to finally dive in. It was on the first of August.

The sun was piping hot outside the window and Edea organised the whole thing. She had everything prepared when we reached her house, had one of those portable refrigerators and all…

Grandma Grace looked horrifyingly funny with her violet short-shorts and a sleeveless top that held too little of what it was supposed to. She hadn't given up her feathers despite her daughter's pleas, finding a way to tie them up to her straw brimmed hat – the one she refused to remove because her grey roots were showing and she didn't find the time to dye them red.

Joanna looked happy that day, almost clueless of the emotional pressure Sephiroth still held on her, and Zack was too excited to notice anything else around him. He had made himself invited the moment he knew we were planning that trip.

It wasn't awkward…

He hadn't kissed me yet.

Miss Scarlet was waiting for us on the brick sidewalk that followed the line of the seashore. She wore the thick bright hair tied back in a long ponytail, and a light beach dress with turquoise sequins.

"This is her…" Edea whispered with a beam on her face.

The blonde, beautiful woman approached us with the elegant caution of a peacock. She kissed Joanna and Grace on the cheek, complimented my «_stunning blue eyes. Your mother's eyes? Yes of_ _course_» and nodded her head towards an awkward raven-haired that stood quietly behind us.

She then pointed downwards to the sand. "I apologise for Rufus. He is a little shy…" she smiled "Over there, under the rainbow parasol."

I had no idea what a Rufus was supposed to be, but Zack called me stupid and said we should probably try to interact with the kid. These were his exact words. Rufus, however, was as much of a kid as Grace.

Edea was clearly mistaken about his age…

He was sixteen years old, extremely tall and naturally well-built, hence much closer in age and attitude to Zack than I ever thought I could be. I felt strangely uncomfortable around them, in my marine-blue swim shorts when both of them wore black ones.

By the end of the day they would be laughing at the same jokes and drinking from the same bottle of beer, and I would learn another word that deeply translated my feelings: greed.

"Cat's eaten your tongue?" he asked me later that day as we waited outside the seafood restaurant. I didn't want to talk, but for some reason couldn't make-do with the silence treatment.

"Where's Rufus?" I asked back. Never knew why I brought him up…

"Dunno. Somewhere inside." he shrugged.

"Shouldn't you be with him?"

"What for?" he said, quizzically.

"Just saying," I said matter-of-factly. "You two really hit it off, huh?"

"I guess. He's a funny guy." he smirked.

I should have said the words right then and there, but I didn't know I had those words in me already. Instead I just bit my nails towards the dark sky.

Next time I came to meet Rufus was in that hospital room, sitting by Miss Scarlet's head, a dark rosary around his fingers. When Edea and I entered the room, his deep-blue eyes lifted from his prayers but his lips remained closed. Edea cried in silence, in a way I never saw anyone cry before, and I just stood there, unable to detach myself from the feelings, the jealousy that I had felt that morning, on the beach.

I remember telling Zack about that small encounter a couple of days after it. Funnily enough, he was hardly remembered of Rufus…

Sometimes I feared that selective memory of his. I had such great memories of us already, I feared I would be the only one feeling the weight and joy of those years on my shoulders. That kiss he gave me, for instance, in the alley, he would never bring it up again, regardless of my attempts.

Aerith had her own theory about it, of course. She had a theory for anything, and strangely, they actually made sense. Sometimes. I believe that was the only reason I began to confine in her some of my harmless doubts. Friendship had nothing to do with it…

"It will be certainly awkward…" she started, her emerald eyes peeking behind the hardcover.

"Yeah…" I bit the end of my pencil, "but not talking about it is awkward too."

She skipped a few pages, gasped. "The Age of Enlightenment! I knew I was missing something…!"

"Hum…I missed out that class." I said, leaning closer to her book.

Her eyes outstretched in shock. "I don't remember such a thing! Why did you?" she asked.

"Dunno." I shrugged, back to my papers.

She sighed. "Perhaps you could pretend it didn't happen…" it was a mutter.

"What?" I squinted, looking at her.

"The kiss."

"Oh, that…" I returned to my study. Aerith put down her book.

"Yes. If he doesn't talk of it himself, it probably meant something." she stopped, as usual wanting me to ask for more. I didn't – "Men won't talk of things that meant something, it's on your genes. Put your feelings into word is a self attack to your honour."

"I don't know if I agree with that…"

"Of course you don't. You are a man. Now, the only weapon you have is silence" smiling, she poked my temple, "Don't bring the subject up and he will."

It didn't work. The kiss descended into oblivion, only to light up my confusing mind every night, when I recalled the gentleness of his lips, its warmth against my cold cheek, and the strange knot inside my stomach overpowered the tingling sensation between my legs. I would never fall asleep before three in the morning then. To pass the time, I drew.

I had begun to draw cats lately.

My portrait of Grace was still waiting for me to finish it. For some reason I couldn't get her eyes straight. Whenever I had the time to spare I would sit down on the cold floor in front of her armchair and try to draw them, but every time the task remained incomplete.

Her eyes told so many stories I couldn't focus. It was terribly unfair.

One day my endeavours stopped making sense.

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><p>Too terrible? I'll say.<p>

It was the worst chapter I wrote for this so far. I almost gave up (please don't tell me I should have). I know Zack and Cloud interaction is closer to non-existent here, but I just felt like putting out something more related to the world around Cloud, rather than Cloud himself. Hence Edea's lover short story, a little bit of Aerith and too little of Grace. Just review so it won't seem like a pointless chapter, will you? :(

Next time I promise something better. I'm already writing it.


	5. Chapter 5

_I felt oh-so terribly ashamed of my last update I knew I needed to make up for it somehow. And this came to life. It's not as creamy and flowery as I had planned it at first, but I'm hoping it to be the bridge that will lead us to a heart-throbbing love story behind corners, full of ordinary and extraordinary events that will somehow fit the unbelievable mess of ideas I have for this story._

[_I miss you Joe._]

**Disclaimer**:_ I own the plot and Grandma Grace_.

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><p>.<p>

He said I was growing into one of those old folks who saw pointless meaning in everything.

"It's funny sometimes." he said, laying on his back with a devilish sneer ornamenting his lips. We were on top of a broken railway carriage, two steps away from a dark, groundless hole.

"Says the one person to call me both slow and stupid on a daily basis" I said, defiant.

He scoffed, folded his arms behind his head.

"It's all good! Just don't read too much into things. You'll suck out the fun in everything." he said.

I flinched, unaware of the actual coldness in his voice. Then, came silence.

We hadn't been like that in a while, just the two of us in the Graveyard, the sun already melting behind the thick clouds of smoke from the industrial area.

Twilight brought the cold but I felt warm enough in my brand-new Italian wool coat – only it wasn't new and I reckon it wasn't Italian either. In the end it was just Edea's. She was to throw it in the bin because it no longer fitted her new vintage chic style. Whatever that was. I assumed it had something to do with the dark netted veil she so often used now, or the round polka dot dresses.

"This horrible coat is making me nervous!" she screamed, emerald-green eyes ready to burst into tears.

I yanked the strawberry twizzler out of my mouth and crawled to the foot of the bed so I could see it.

"It's a nice coat…" I shrugged.

Edea threw me a death glare, "Is it now?" she asked, and I shrugged again.

She pulled it out of the wardrobe so fast I can no longer recall the look on her face when she threw it out at me. It was quite the nice jacket, though. Large and warm, nearly reaching my knees…

"Hey, Cloud…" he called, his voice suddenly concerned. I was spacing out again, like in the old days.

"What." I muttered, watched him sit up.

"What do you think will happen if Alexandria wins?" he asked, numb eyes drowning into mine.

I nearly flinched again…

"You mean the war?" I asked back, the sound barely making it out of my mouth.

I could tell we were both a little unsure of what to say. We have grown up listening about the conflict but we had never felt the need to talk about it. Not even at home. I knew Barret's brother-in-law had been recently sent overseas, but that was part of that world of Barret's I did not interfere with.

"If they win, is what I mean." he repeated, sternly.

I shook my head, saying nothing. Zack tilted his head, an evil smirk on his lips.

"Wouldn't we regret the time we wasted here doing nothing?" he asked.

My eyebrows arched. "We're always doing something…"

He dragged himself closer. "Yea, such as…?"

"Well…" I bit my lower lip, "I draw sometimes. You read your comics and you smoke… we laugh a lot. Sometimes we talk too… I dunno…"

"Hum… Yeah, I guess you're right."

He was smiling but he was not looking at me. Only later did I finally understand why. I think…

It was Almond Day. Yes, the annual festivity where the whole neighbourhood gathered to celebrate the independence of Traverse as a self-governing community. It was in the start of May and someone decided I was old enough to take care of the drinks table by myself. I wasn't though: I was still fifteen after all, and completely abandoned it after a while – money still on the little silver can and all.

The music had been roaring for an hour already when he finally cared to appear. No one was supposed to see him of course; otherwise they would probably force him to help me.

"And God forbid…" I said sarcastically, sitting down on the stoned wall behind me.

Zack was squatted right on the other side.

"Shut up. I'm here aren't I? You wanted some company…" he complained.

"I wanted some _visible _company!" I said. "People will think I'm a wacko, talking to myself like this…"

He suppressed a laugh. "They wouldn't be that far from the truth, anyway…"

"Fuck off." I grunted. He threw a couple of little pea gravels at me in response.

I could have complained but the delicate singing sound of her voice told me not to. When I looked up, she tilted her head and smiled, the light-pink bow on her hair following the swinging of her ponytail. I didn't smile at her like I used to – to this day I am not sure why.

"So, enjoying the party from that side of the table?" she asked, hands linked behind her back.

"Not much to do anyway. People want beer, not orange juices…" I said.

"I can see that…" she snickered. "You know, Tifa promised to help me selling my flowers but I haven't seen her all evening…" she then explained. A neighbour approached the table and asked me for a coke.

"I saw her dancing with Cid just a while ago." I said. Then, turning to the man "Sorry, just orange juice."

She folded her arms. "Cid, huh…? He really won't let go until he trick her."

"Guess so." I shrugged like it was none of my business. And really, it wasn't.

Zack threw us another handful of little stones.

Aerith chuckled, nearly mutely, and pretended the little peas hadn't reached her.

I remember noticing in her eyes the absolute certainty that someone – if not Zack himself – was behind that wall.

I didn't quite understand his annoyance and unexpected irritation, but the very uncertainty of it convinced me to leave my post and follow him, a couple of minutes later. Or maybe it was just _My Sharona_ playing loud in the middle of Chocobo Street that compelled me to do it: I will never know.

We crossed Mr. Kisaragi's backyard at once and run down the main road laughing like lunatics, squatting behind the bushes every time we heard a familiar voice.

Our excitement was much stronger than the disobedience itself, but we didn't mind…

We reached the open field. I couldn't remember the last time we had been there.

"Let's play Doormat!" he dared me.

I squinted. "We have no ball…?"

He looked around, frankly engaged in finding one. He wouldn't though.

"Let's pretend we do have one!" he yelped excitedly, his aqua-green eyes glowing against the night sky.

"Aren't we a little-too old to do that?" I didn't think I had to point out the obvious.

He pinched my forehead and his lips opened in a childish smile.

I understood then. Zack didn't want to play Doormat, just like he didn't want to celebrate Almond Day. He wanted to be goofy and feel silly and run down the road with the same laugh and the same strength he did a decade ago. Because after all, he was sixteen already: he didn't read dirty magazines; those were for kids. And he missed being one.

Playing stupid was exhausting. After a whole hour of it I was nearly melting on the dirty field.

"Already?" he mocked, sitting down next to my decaying body.

"Shut up, I'm out of practise!" I said, trying to catch my breath.

His head joined mine on the grass. He waited a few minutes to say it…

"I wish we could be like this more often…"

"What's stopping us?" I asked, confused. He glared at me from the corner of his eye.

"Everything is." he blurted.

"Oh…" I didn't comprehend. "Can't we change _everything_ then?"

"Well, we could but it would take forever." he said.

I was still out of breath and we kept quiet for a while, the music from Chocobo Street resounding at a distance. He sat up again, eyes staring down at me with cat-like curiosity.

"You really have no clue, do you? I mean, of what I'm talking about…" he asked, very serious.

I snickered. "Nope. No idea."

He sighed, defeated. "You're so stupid!" he said, falling on the grass again.

I dared him to count the stars he could see then. I said I saw one hundred of them, and he began to count them just to prove me wrong. How many hours did we end up wasting on that stupidity? We talked of school too, money and the lack of it, and he talked of Aerith because he still didn't like her.

Finally he asked me how long would it take for me to leave Joanna's again.

"I just got back." I shrugged "Why do you ask?"

"Because he'll be around," a brief pause "Sephiroth."

I chuckled. "She says she loves him… more than me, I suppose."

"Why don't you stay with Edea and Grace, then? _They_ love you." he said, matter-of-factly.

"Can't. He will break her if I leave her… If we all leave her."

He sighed, "I never liked him."

I smiled, squinted at him. "You never like anyone."

"That's not fair, Cloud." he chuckled "I really like you, but I don't think you'll ever understand how…"

As the words slithered out of his tongue, I instantly recognised them. Those words. I had heard them before inside my head. They were harmless and pure, though I couldn't tell the difference back then. I drank them in, tried to memorise them just because they sounded beautiful. Because they were his...

Sometimes I still wonder what could have happened would I have kissed him then. I didn't because I didn't know how to, I didn't feel like I could, I didn't feel like I needed to…

I sat up at once. "Can't you simple show me how?"

He looked back at me with a quizzical squint. "Show you how I like you? I dunno how!" he said.

"Can't you ask someone for help?"

"It's fucking embarrassing…" he whispered as he stood up. I felt strangely upset.

"Then maybe you shouldn't like me." I said.

He chuckled. "C'mon, I'll take you home." his outstretched hand helped me up.

He was warm. I was not.

I hated when Zack took me home. Joanna's home. I always watched him from the porch walking down the street again until he disappeared. Only then would I find the courage to enter, when the only light I knew was no longer in sight. I didn't feel so ashamed that way, such a coward, abandoned into silence.

Life within those walls was as stilted as the plastic smiles on high school group photographs.

Joanna barely left her room now, which gave Sephiroth the advantage of dealing with me the way he wanted. He didn't hit me unless he had a purpose see, but he could always find the time to humiliate me.

Only when he earned the place for assistant professor at Midgar Faculty of Arts and Humanities did I saw the faint, desperate light at the end of the tunnel.

I had taught myself to cook a decent meal by then – it was a good thing he still remembered to provide the goods. Joanna wouldn't eat though, not until Edea sat by her side and kiss her forehead. Thanks to Sephiroth's busy schedule, she would often stop by in the morning and leave a couple of hours before sunset. She would read small pieces of her new unfinished novel aloud and Joanna would laugh and cry and curse with her, Erik Satie's Gymnopédies in the background.

Tears would threaten behind my eyes in those moments, and I'd drink them in not to cry.

It would be ungrateful to cry, for as long as I had this…

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><p><em>Please review. Reviews are my gasoline. Without it the car won't run :(<em>

_PS: Yes, there is a war. Actually there has been a war for quite some years now but I didn't feel it appropriate for eleven year-olds to be discussing it. Zack is already sixteen though. I assume he's old enough to wonder. Thanks for reading~_


	6. Chapter 6

**Please read this**: hey there. I tried to keep this chapter as T-rated as possible, but it is still quite _obvious_. I have little to no notion of boundaries at all, I don't know when it becomes too much, so I'm counting on you (the readers) to give me your most sincere opinion about it. Maybe I'm not making sense now, so just read the chapter through. It will make sense then, I hope.

Thanks Lollita and Amatheriz (check her DA account asap.) for the lovely reviews. Thank you, those who alert and favourite my story, and thank you all for reading it. On with it~

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Final Fantasy. I do not own The Cure [I so f-wished!]. I just own my cat.

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><p>.<p>

So this is how it went.

Dex from Mideel told Lora from the coffee shop, who told her cousin in Junon. Her name was Martha. Martha then called Seto, who knew Teioh from school, and both set out to tell the girls. One of the girls knew Biggs from the Marshes, who told Barret. Barret told no one. But another girl knew Yuffie, sister to Tifa, who then told Cid, the current boyfriend. And because Cid never liked me much he told Zack. And because Zack liked me a lot he told me.

"I don't wanna go with 'em. Do you?" I asked, lifting the kaleidoscope towards the ceiling.

The colours made me dizzy but I still loved it.

"I dunno, it could be fun?" he said vaguely, as he lit a cigarette "We never leave this goddamn place."

"Actually…" I pointed the cylinder towards him, "I don't come to your place that often anymore."

He laughed, tossing me the cigarette pack. "I meant the fucking town!"

"Oh yeah, that." I chuckled, playing the dummy.

It had become so much easier for me to be around him if I just acted plainly idiotic. He didn't seem to be able to tell the right from wrong.

But Zack too was different – I felt him different ever since the week had started. I asked him twice if there was anything he would like to tell me, to confine in me, but he would always shrug it off. I was never the kind of person to let those matters sink in, so I let him be. His secrets… if he didn't want to talk about them, I for sure wouldn't bring them up.

It didn't take long for me to find what was happening, anyway…

We ended up seeing The Cure after all. Cid drove us there, reluctantly.

The band was playing at Stigmas, an underground club in Midgar. Apparently, Dex from Mideel knew a guy who knew a guy who could get kids in for free. It was a scheme of course – the guy was trying to sell us meth or get a quick fuck – but Zack still managed to get us in.

You know, since we were there and all…

It was crazy. James Smith was a mere dark shade on the far-off stage, encircled in this weird, feverish green light. The sound was terrible, deafening, completely infected from the low-quality sound system, but it still sounded like them. The whole place vibrated. The stoned, the messy, the virgins, the poor, the ugly, the potheads, the free. And the illegal too. I was an illegal, most people around me were. Some didn't have the money for the extra fee, others didn't have the age. But it was still our music.

I was completely engrossed in it after a while, and I didn't even notice Zack's hand leaving mine.

Man, I had been so excited I didn't even realise he had been holding my hand the whole evening…

I turned around in time to see him rubbing his eyes with his wrists, and pushed through every faceless body behind me to finally join him in the back. He looked funny with his black hood on and dizzy watery eyes smiling at me. I asked again what was going on but he just wrinkled his nose.

"Got tired. The sound is awful," he said. I could hardly hear it.

"Where were you, then? I could've come with."

He sniffed to his open palm, smiled. "Needed a cigarette." he said.

I nodded, didn't believe him. His face was different, his eyes too red, too open. I knew what he had been doing – it was written all over – but I didn't find the strength to confront him. I didn't have the right to.

"We can go home if you want…" I said, trying to hear my own voice above the music.

They were playing Let's Go to Bed, an old hit. His favourite. He smiled, wrinkling his nose one last time.

"I don't feel it if you don't…" he said. Or was it Smith?

I shook my head, squinted. "What?"

He reached for my naked arm almost in slow motion – or was the smoke making me dizzy? He was shaking. Like the song. Like milk. But he still smiled that faint strange smile of his, his eyes still very open, watery and pissing me off.

He dragged his feet closer. "I won't play it if you don't play it first…" he muttered.

This time I could hear it perfectly clear against my skin. It was his voice.

"What, Zack…?" I whispered back, not quite sure why, not quite sure how.

He really was different. I just couldn't bear the thought of staying behind. Behind him, you see.

The moment he grasped his cold fingers around my wrist I knew everything would change. But I had to follow him and I did; otherwise I would lose him.

I saw it happening the way a voyeur would have seen it. Zack tried to keep the broken door shut with his feet, but he said afterwards it got tiresome after a while. Outside the stall, dirty mirrors of any shape and colour hung onto the walls, full of nasty writings and drawings.

The first thing I noticed was my face. It was unbelievingly red and the blue in my eyes nearly melting.

My shoulders were shaking uncontrollably, my fingers tangled in the mess of his dark hair…

And Zack was on his knees.

The cure _was_ right above us. The whole world was right above us, and the only noises that I could hear were mine, trying not to make a total fool out of myself. We hadn't properly kissed yet; I thought we ought to have done it before things like that could happen.

I didn't try to stop him though. At first I was afraid it would chase him away if I did, but as his hands began to touch me, I wasn't sure if I wanted him to stop.

But it was so quick.

Fifteen minutes later I would be silently regaining my composure in the backseat of Cid's red LeCar, listening to some obnoxious commercial hit and an overexcited Tifa discussing her menstrual circle, or something just as interesting. I wasn't paying attention.

Beside me, with his eyes turned to the window, Zack wouldn't talk, wouldn't listen…

It was like he wasn't even there.

"How do you know you're in love with someone?" she asked, casually enough not to scare me.

I put down my notes and scratched my forehead. "I think it has something to do with… feelings?"

She hit me with her papers. "I'm not asking what it is! Just how do you know it is it…"

"Well." I sighed "If you feel like kissing someone, it probably means you love them. Right?"

Aerith tilted her head, pondering on my empty reasoning, while I returned to my reading.

The public library was probably the one place we frequented together anymore. It was a good place to study since hardly anyone used it, and neither Aerith nor I had the perfect atmosphere back at home to do it. We never talked much about it, mostly because we understood each other without much effort, but I sometimes wondered how she managed to keep her flawless grades, to be always so put together.

And I didn't know how I couldn't.

"_I will follow thee and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well._" she muttered.

"Shakespeare." I completed.

"Yes. So you see, it is not quite about kissing. It's more about suffering…" she smiled.

"To be in love?"

"Hum-hum." she nodded, returning her eyes to her papers. "We should be more careful, I suppose."

"Why _we_? I'm not in love with you!" I clearly stated.

Her eyebrows narrowed closer. "And I'm not in love with you either! It was just an expression…!"

"Oh…" I felt a little embarrassed there, "That's right then."

Aerith was always right. I never told her what had happened that night, at the concert, because I feared her boldness, her sincerity. I feared that skilful way she had to break into my thoughts. I couldn't let her know how angry I was, how humiliated I felt after being completely rejected.

Afterwards, I didn't hear of Zack for at least a couple of weeks. That is, until he stopped by my doorstep unannounced. He was pretty much the same then, and we were pretty much the same together.

Except for one or other thing…

"Never thought of selling those?" he asked me once, nodding towards my open sketchbook.

"Huh? These are hardly likable, let alone buyable!" I cringed, closing it.

He shrugged. "Don't be so hard on yourself… you're pretty talented." he said.

We were on the open goods wagon again, the sun was setting behind the smoke. It was our daily routine restored, though it felt kind of lifeless sometimes…

"It's just portraits of people…" I muttered. "Edea and Grace's. I can't do yours yet. Sometime, maybe…"

_I won't say it if you don't say it first._

"Come here." he said, staring down at his open palms.

"What?" I asked, as I dragged my butt on the dusty metal.

It was no surprise what he wanted. We had begun to do it quite often now. It was one of those things… one of those things that changed.

With no uttered word, no hands involved, he tilted his head and reached for my lips, slithering his tongue to part them open. It was always wet. Silent too. We would kiss without touching in any other part of our bodies, until he grew frustrated enough not to be able to handle it, and broke the kiss. I would then return to my drawings and he would resume conversation the normal way he always did.

One year later I was selling my drawings on Little Traverse monthly street fair.

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><p>Too short? I'm sorry, I didn't want to bore you all.<p>

So, review please? :)


	7. Chapter 7

Hi there! Here's a little appetiser for the readers. You deserved a lot more for the reviews and the waiting ~ and for that I apologise ~ but I just can't force myself to write. Hopefully you'll like it either way. Have fun.

[_I miss you Joe_]

**Disclaimer**: I own the plot and whatnot. I do not own the characters themselves.

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><p>.<p>

I pretended I didn't understand. It made no sense to me what he was saying.

We were quiet for a while. I could hear the cold metal around me howling at the slightest touch of wind. They were suffering, those trains. Almost as much as I was, I suppose. But they were far stronger than me, they were braver. They endured. I endured nothing. I flinched and crawled into my bed, hid under the covers every time I reached my limit. I had a limit. Trains don't have a limit, do they? They just lay there, waiting for nothing, expressing their grief over the coarse whisper of the wind.

Finally, I looked up from the snake as she slithered away from my foot. Zack didn't find her interesting enough, said she was plain. He had developed quite the philosophy about plain things. Cheap, he once called them. You can find them on every drug store, he said. I didn't agree with him then. Plain things were always rare to find. People often found them disturbing so they struggled to smother them under complicated things, complicated words, complicated clothes, complicated thoughts.

I asked him again what he meant.

"I just think it would be for the best. I mean…" he stretched his legs forward, seemed uneasy.

"Have I done anything to upset you?" I was pretty sure I hadn't.

"You never do anything…" he sighed, never looking at me.

I took my fingers to my mouth and carefully bit my thumbnail until I could feel no taste. I was still waiting for him to talk about it, about that night, although my consciousness strived to repress that memory. I figured now was a good moment for him to bring it up. He didn't.

"This is all we ever do, Cloud. It's not normal" he said.

I watched him raise and getting out of the wagon.

"You mean coming here?"

"Yes. No, I mean…" his hands were on my knees; he talked slowly now – "We sit here nearly every day. I watch you draw, you listen to me talk about some nonsense, we wait until the church clock strikes and nothing ever happens. Now tell me, what is this?"

I narrowed my eyebrows, sternly, "This is friendship." I said.

He laughed, backed away. "This is _your_ idea of friendship? We barely ever talk anymore!"

"I never talked much…"

"We always talked about something!"

"We still do—"

"About nothing!"

"Well, tell me what you want me to say then and we'll talk!" I straightened up.

He chuckled. "That's not how friendship is done, Cloud."

I nearly yield then. "That's how I've always done it!"

His eyes turned dense for a moment, his lips stiffened.

He looked at me as if I was the most intolerable thing on Earth, but he didn't seem mad then. Only after, when his lips parted open and the words came pouring out, uncontrollably it seemed…

"You know what? I'm sick of this friendship! You never really got me in the first place. You always assumed I would be there for you when you needed. Did you ever really mind? And even when I tried to show you how much I cared for you, you never really appreciated me, did you?"

My hand stopped halfway from reaching my lips again. My eyes opened wide at him.

"I don't… I don't understand…" and I reckon I still don't.

"Of course not. You never understand anything I say or anything I do. From day one." he laughed.

"If you wanted us to do something different you could've told me." I left the wagon and followed him across the railway, towards the fence - "We could have gone to the theatre or hang out at the mall or go to the beach... I dunno, we can still do that stuff, right?"

He stopped; dragged his feet as he turned around.

There were those eyes again: the eyes I didn't recognise.

"You are a messed-up kid, Cloud. You always were and I loved you for that."

My mind wanted me to reply but no word came out.

"Today I'm just sick of you."

_I am sick of you, I am sick of you. Sick. Sick. You. _

The words echoed in my head for what seemed like an eternity. He hated me. I never knew why and I would learn later he himself didn't know why either. It was just how things were supposed to be for us.

I couldn't hold on forever, pretending that I wasn't upset, that I wasn't mad at him, that I wasn't angry. I couldn't hold on forever and pretend I didn't miss him. One day – it was only a matter of time – Edea noticed it. She had too, she was an insightful woman. Grandma Grace often said she had inherited the quality from her.

"You two…" she muttered, biting the end of her reading glasses - "What is the thing?"

I stretched my naked legs upwards, my back against the cold floor. I then yawned and sat up again, still chewing around the best answer. I ended up shrugging anyway.

She squinted. "You really don't know or you don't know what to call it?"

I shrugged again. "I guess I just don't know."

"Hum… My guess is that you need to find yourself some new friends, kiddo." she said, her dark, pointy fingernails tapping the table.

"What?" I almost laughed, "I have plenty of friends as it is. I have Aerith and Barret and… I have them."

She smiled, tenderly, and reached for a little notebook within her handbag.

"What if I invited Rufus for dinner some time?" she suggested, harmlessly.

I sat straight. Rufus, Scarlet's Rufus? Suddenly I felt bitter. Selfish too. Miss Scarlet was still in a coma; she had been so for nearly a year now. Edea stopped bringing it up after a while and the subject fell into oblivion like so many others before it.

Right then and there, when I lifted my eyes at her again, she looked older. Her curly dark locks were a mess and her emerald-green eyes had lost their glow. She seemed lost.

I felt like hugging her but I wouldn't know how to do it.

"Do you think he would come?" I asked instead.

She chuckled, "I wouldn't know, but no one can blame me for trying."

"Yeah…" a brief pause – "You do that."

Strangely enough, a week later, he did show up at her doorstep. I could barely recognise him though. He wore black overalls, jeans and a t-shirt, and seemed even smaller, tinnier than me. We shook hands like two casual acquaintances who meet up for a drink after a long day at the office, and he asked me how my mother was doing. I just said she was alive. Probably not the best choice of words…

Edea prepared a list of what-to-talk-about subjects, as she wasn't really at ease with the idea of having the boy around all by himself. She asked him about school and girls, while I tried to talk about sports. It was my second worst choice of the evening: I know nothing about sports.

Grace would have been a blessing that night but she was down at the casino in a nearby city, playing bingo with her gals. She said the only reason she ever went there were the rich, old fops who offered young girls her age just about anything to get a little attention.

"Some brandy, some cigars… by the end of the night maybe a few diamonds…" she laughed.

By the time our second dish came out, we were done talking.

Just three broken shadows watching TV with no sound…

Edea's plan failed, of course. Rufus and I had nothing in common, nothing to talk about, nothing to hate or admire about one another. Of course I blamed it on the timing, with Scarlet in the hospital and my innocent obliviousness towards a broken heart. I guess I was lucky, somehow. Most people dream of feeling nothing of that sort. I once knew someone who didn't, but he wasn't that lucky…

But Aerith knew better.

"Can I borrow your sketchbook for a week or two?" her voice caught me off-guard. We were having lunch at the school cafeteria – it was such a noisy place as it was we barely ever talked.

"What for?" I asked, playing with the noodles in my plate.

"Well, if you must know…" she smiled – "Remember that drawing you gave me for my birthday?"

I pretended to cough, pretentiously. "You mean my masterpiece?"

"Yes, well…" she drank down her orange juice – "an old friend of mine goes to an arts school in Vane and I've sent him a copy of your drawing a couple of months ago. Turns out he really, really liked it."

I squinted, suspicious. "You sent him a copy of my drawing? How the hell did you do that?"

"It's not rocket science, you know? Anyway" she tilted her head "He thinks you have a very good shot of getting into his school next year. You just need to send over your _portfolio_. I think that's it."

I didn't know what to say for a moment. An arts school… by then I had no idea such a thing existed.

"And _I_ _want_ to go to an arts school?" it was a plausible question.

Aerith shrugged. "You might. You're always drawing after all" she said.

"But why in Vane?" I repeated, "Aren't they our enemies? I mean, our enemies' allies, anyway…"

"Cloud! I can't believe you just said that!" she retorted.

I laughed. "Well, aren't they?"

"Don't you dare laughing at me!" she said yet again, straightening up and folding her arms – "_That_ is a very serious accusation! There are no enemies in war, only fear and suffering and death!"

"Hum, is that so?" I sank back in my chair and smiled, "Fear and suffering and death among friends?"

"Among frightened people, yes." she was calmer now, "Do you feel like the enemy, like the threat…?"

I looked at her in silence, bit my fingernails, shrugged.

"I just don't want anything to happen… to the people I love, I guess…?"

"My point exactly." she nodded, contended. "Now about your sketchbook—"

"Again, why would I need to go to Vane?" I insisted.

"You don't need to as in _need_ _to_, but maybe it would do you some good, to learn and improve yourself. Wouldn't you like that?"

In the end I did give her some of my sketches but I still hadn't made up my mind. Half of them were quite good, and I chose them just in case the idea began to grow on me. The other half was terrible, mostly unfinished good-for-nothing sketches of Grace.

When Zack and I started talking again, I didn't immediately tell him I had applied. I didn't think it necessary, and I didn't want to bother him. Deep within I reckon I just didn't want to give him the trouble of over-thinking his behaviour towards me, knowing there was a slight possibility of me moving away. Not that he would do that, though he did over-think sometimes.

Especially with me…

The house was quiet for a change. It was late of course, and I never knew what possessed me to get up and pick up the phone that night, since I never do it during daytime. I was glad I did it as soon as I heard his voice though.

"Hey, what time is it?" it was a deep, hoarse mutter.

"Nearly three…" I kept quiet not to wake the rest of the house, "Why do you ask?"

I heard him chuckled on the other end of the line. It was easy to tell he was not in himself.

"Zack… Why are you calling me?" I whispered, tightening my grip around the receiver.

I listened to nothing but silence for a while longer, his breath fainting at the distance. Part of me wanted to play it safe, bring an end to the conversation as soon as possible and ignore it even happened. It sounded so simple in my mind, and yet I couldn't keep away. I couldn't force myself to shut him out.

I didn't want to hurt him, but I didn't want it to hurt either.

"It's late…" I said. I hated his silence.

"I miss you…" a whisper.

"Yeah, we haven't talked in a while."

"Can I see you?" he asked, his tone suddenly higher. I nodded nearly without thinking.

"You mean right now?" I asked back.

I couldn't hear his answer. He laughed for a while, sounded completely out of himself. I asked him where he was and he said he was waiting for me. I tried to laugh with little success. I hated him like this, like that, but I too wanted do see him. And so I left.

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><p>Things are happening: what my sound like pointless dialogue is never pointless.<p>

So, please review? :)


	8. Chapter 8

Thought of the day: Sometimes I feel like I'm not really living up to this. I love my idea but is this story really working?

I'm sorry for the waiting. Enjoy~

[_I miss you Joe_]

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><p>.<p>

"Zack… Why are you calling me?" I whispered, tightening my grip around the receiver.

I listened to nothing but silence for a while longer, his breath fainting at the distance. Part of me wanted to play it safe, bring an end to the conversation as soon as possible and ignore it even happened. It sounded so simple in my mind, and yet I couldn't keep away. I couldn't force myself to shut him out.

I didn't want to hurt him, but I didn't want it to hurt either.

"It's late…" I said. I hated his silence.

"I miss you…" a whisper.

"Yeah, we haven't talked in a while."

"Can I see you?" he asked, his tone suddenly higher. I nodded nearly without thinking.

"You mean right now?" I asked back.

I couldn't hear his answer. He laughed for a while, sounded completely out of himself. I asked him where he was and he said he was waiting for me. I tried to laugh with little success. I hated him like this, like that, but I too wanted to see him. And so I left.

From the gate to his porch I couldn't see a living thing, but I did hear the TV blurting out a noisy commercial. I didn't want to intrude so I crossed his yard in silence, through the dark, and came to sit outside the window I knew to be his room. We've done that before. We even had a signal that warned him I was waiting outside. I no longer remember what it was…

It was a cold night, mid September. I recalled Grandma Grace that morning, saying something about days becoming shorter. She made a joke about it, said she was getting shorter too and by the minute.

Lately she often wondered where her youth had gone to, her days of a rising star on stage. Had a wonderful career ahead of her, she said - until she fell in love with the wrong person. Edea would always come and say her father was a beautiful specimen who loved too much and at the same time. The world was not ready for someone like that, I always thought.

I never asked Joanna about her father. I never asked her about mine either.

"He died in war" I would always say to my teachers at school. A lie.

"How long have you been there?" asked a voice from above, near whispering.

I looked up at him, barely telling him out of the darkness. He helped me inside.

"Well, I certainly wasn't expecting you would really come…" he said, laughing and rubbing an eye with the heel of his hand. I shrugged.

"Thought you wanted me to…" I muttered back, sitting on the end of his bed.

He laughed and hid in the back of his room. The light-blue lava lamp didn't reach him but I could almost perceive what he was doing. I could almost taste the porcelain-white powder myself, perfectly lined up on his desk. Strangely enough, it didn't feel uncomfortable anymore…

He sniffed out loud, coming back to me. "Are you ok?" he asked.

"This feels a little weird… you and me not talking." I said, tapping my feet on the floor.

"Yeah" he smiled, "I guess I'm not helping either."

I didn't look at him. "I really don't know how to be a better friend to you, Zack."

He laughed, and it was his genuine laugher - "You're a great friend, Cloud. You're here at 4 in the morning, watching me kill myself. And it doesn't even bother you."

I squinted. "That's a terrible thing to say."

He shrugged, crisscrossing his legs on the bed beside me. I asked him why he was doing this.

"I was fed up of being perfect all the time." he said, matter-of-factly.

"You were never perfect." I said.

"True. But you always liked me, didn't you?"

A chuckle. "After all this years, you still manage to confuse me. It's like I'm ten all over again."

He tried to laugh but his voice stumbled on a cough. He sniffed to his open palm again. I could only imagine how red his aqua-blue eyes were in that moment. He was looking at me, of course, so intensely it nearly burned.

"Can I kiss your lips?" he asked, very quietly. Naturally.

I sat up straight and squinted at him. "That's an odd way to ask that sort of thing…"

He chuckled. "I guess. I swear it's not the powder talking, though…"

I couldn't laugh. Instead I nodded, very sternly, my cheeks feeling heavy and stiff. I tried not to move as I felt his cold lips nearing mine, the scent of his peppermint gum making my eyes dizzy, watery.

It was not the first time we kissed, even though it could have been. Silent. Wet. Different. I closed my eyes out of embarrassment when his hands reached for my wrists. I wasn't used to it anymore – the selfishness of his touch. And our tongues were kissing in a language I didn't know.

After that, we did keep things to our rhythm. We would kiss more often when we were alone, in a manner that was neither cold nor reckless like it had been before. He would still grow frustrated sometimes though, and we would break it off – move on. He knew what he was doing way better than me, a detail that would always make me wonder where he had learnt to do that kind of thing.

Then, with the cowardliness of a lion, it would hit me. It was probably the girls…

I had a girl too: Aerith, of course. But we never did anything of that sort. She was too polite and much of a romantic to ask me for a kiss the way Zack bluntly did. She did kiss me on the forehead once, when I got my first A+ at Medieval History. It was a great accomplishment for both of us, since she had been tutoring me for quite a while.

Looking at her across the room, scribbling and taking notes as fast her gentle fingers were to permit her, I did ask myself sometimes what it would be like if I had felt for her what I felt for him. Yes. I'm sure it would have spared me a lot of sleepless nights and punches on the stomach, would I have loved her.

I later came to understand Joanna actually thought we were dating for as long as she could remember.

"Not at all, ma'am. I just like to keep an eye on him." Aerith politely answered, with a smile.

Joanna stopped her glass of wine in the air, halfway from meeting her lips.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I really thought… you know…" she stuttered – "It's just natural for a mother to assume these things, I suppose…" she apologised. Edea nudged her, amused.

Aerith nodded – "Yes, of course. And it's very important for parents to engage actively in their children's lives." she said, concerned.

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence around that table. Edea tried not to laugh, covering her smile with the napkin. She knew Aerith and she loved that wittiness about her. Everyone did.

I tried to move on with the conversation, as fast and badly as I could.

"Is Sephiroth ok with you not dining with him tonight?" I asked. Grace squinted, beside me.

"With you not dining? Is that an expression we use now?" she asked, waving a flamboyant and trembling hand at me.

I squinted back. "What's wrong with _dining_?"

Edea laughed. "It is a little odd for you to say it like that!"

"I find it charming." said a smiling Aerith.

"It's a little bit old-fashion, don't you think?" Joanna was intrigued, turning to Edea alone.

"It's not old-fashion. It's regular!" I fought back.

"Ah! I'm old-fashion and no one calls me charming no more!" said Grace.

"That's because of all the cigars you smoke, mother! By the way, weren't you quitting?"

No, Grace was never really quitting. And her addiction turned into lung diseases and lungs turned into baking recipes which turned into Edea's new novel which turned into Bowie. Both Aerith and Joanna loved Bowie, so they really spoke of nothing else through the night. They were bonding, like Edea had suggested in a whisper, nodding towards them in the back of the room. It could be potentially damaging, she said.

I only understood what she meant a couple of years afterwards…

At school, every person who knew us threw their ashes to the fire and made their little joke. I never really minded people thinking we were together, mostly because I didn't particularly understand what «being together» even meant.

Aerith never bothered to explain, but she agreed with them. Said we made a lovely couple of friends.

"I just don't like it." was his response.

We were back to back with one of the oldest wagons in the Graveyard. Ahead of us, the chain-link fence that stretched across the outer limits cut the ash-gray fog the early morning always brought. Behind it awake the Lower District, with its dark fallen alleys and tipsy industrial air that left you feeling heavy. If we listened carefully we could already hear the cry of a truck, struggling to resume its journey.

Keep in mind this was a busy part of the city. Little Traverse was still in its nest.

He convinced me down there before we separated our ways to school. It was very important, he said.

"You don't like it? What?" I asked back, looking at him.

Zack grabbed a handful of gravel and, one by one, tried to get them through the holes in the fence.

"You and her." he bit his lower lip, prepared his shot – "You and anybody, I don't like it."

"Hum. I see…" I didn't, actually. "It's just people I know," I said.

"I'm just someone you know too!" the little stoned backfired. He stopped.

I was biting my nails again. "You're Zack… aren't you?"

He tossed his head back and sighed, his fingers playing absentmindedly with the cross around his neck. It didn't mean anything in particular since Zack was never a religious person, but it somehow suited his current mood. He was a true kid of nineties now, with his flannel shirts and denim jacket, his shorts above the knee and worn-out leather boots…

That morning I wore my black wool sweater I reckon from 1988, and I knew I would wear it for as long as it fitted me. Needless to say that, back then, I never afforded to be in synch with fashion.

And fashion was certainly something that moved far too fast.

"Alright then." he finally spoke again, shaking the dust off his hands as he stood up.

I watched him, clueless – "What now?" I asked.

He was smiling when he sat on my lap, his bare knees scraping the ground. He was uncommonly close: it felt strangely normal. Zack wet his lips.

"If I leave a mark on you, they won't." he said, quietly, his aqua-blue eyes languidly melting into mine.

I narrowed my eyebrows, "What do you mean, a mark?"

He chuckled, leaning over my neck, breathing against my skin.

I nearly flinched at the touch of his cold tongue, my image reflected on a dirty mirror clouding my thoughts. Just like that night. How could things like these get out of hand so quickly, I wondered.

How could I succumb to his touch so fast?

It hurt when his teeth savoured my flesh, but I refused to close my eyes. His hand grabbed the free side of my neck and, for one furtive second – I felt his. I wanted to be his.

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><p>.<p>

**It's probably one hundred a.m now. Review, please?**


	9. Chapter 9

Thank you. Thank you, thank you is all that I can say. This is for you, and Cloud and Zack are gay! It rhymes.

**Disclaimer**: you know, the usual drama.

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><p>.<p>

Things changed a lot that November.

Miss Scarlet was home at last, and since Edea hardly left her side I barely got to see her. And Joanna too. Sephiroth was looking for a new house closer to the big city, planning to move away by the end of the year, and she worried herself trying to find a new job and getting their affairs in order as a soon-to-be married couple. Of course she was moving with him, and of course he wanted them to get married.

In a parallel and yet so similar universe, Aerith's parents were only getting started with their divorce process. In the early nineties, divorce in Little Traverse was as much of a forbidden fruit as it was back in the sixteen century England. Henry the Eighth probably knew better.

Her mother left town sooner than expected, but she was sensible enough not to take Aerith with her.

Ultimately, it was for the best – she did say to me once, over the worn-out pages of Dostoyevsky's _Idiot_.

I got a visit from Barret that same week. We hadn't talked in a while – probably since summer ended – and I bumped into him sitting on my doorstep unannounced. The strangest of things happened the minute he saw me: his mouth opened in a huge, warming smile.

"I'm leaving for Nibelheim tomorrow, first thing in the morning!" he said.

"Nibelheim?" I repeated, both doubtful and sternly.

He nodded. "Just got my letter, mate! Stamped an' all."

"When exactly did you tell me you're signing up?" I narrowed my eyebrows.

He laughed, amused, and tried to reach an arm out to pat my head. I flinched in honest distrust. Nibelheim was one of the Midgarian outposts overseas; one of their most advanced stations. The whole village had been evacuated more than ten years ago, and so did the neighbouring districts. On the news, nothing good ever came from Nibelheim – and as another year went on, it didn't change.

He chuckled. "You gotta do what you gotta do, mate. It's survival."

"How?" I nearly yelled – "You're fucking eighteen, Barret. And you have no training! Everybody's angry. Why don't you go on demonstrations or on strike like everyone else? Midgar is chaotic!"

"I didn't think you would understand me, Cloud. You're too genuine, too innocent…" he smiled.

Silence. I felt my whole life weighing on my shoulders. Perhaps I had been too genuine, too innocent all my life, and that is why no one ever took me seriously. But I couldn't accept it. Barret had nothing but his family and his friends. We were the same – we were kids. We shouldn't die on behalf of someone else's problems. I didn't accept it, and yet I let it happen.

And I never heard of him again.

On the 17th Edea made her special arrangements for my birthday dinner. It was a tradition, but it was also about to become something else.

You see, sometimes, when you end up delaying important news, eventually they will come across as secrets – secrets you wanted to keep, secrets you thought best to keep. And it's even worse when someone who always came first, suddenly became the last one to know those secrets, the news you kept delaying. And if this person turned out to be Zack…

Well, it should never be Zack. And yet it was.

"I still can't believe you're leaving!" cried an over-enthusiastic Edea, gently ruffling my hair.

"And our house! Now we can finally rent the house!" said Joanna, excited.

Miss Scarlet smiled, sympathetically. "Well, he might be back earlier than we think… What if he doesn't like it there?"

"I know people in Vane, if that helps…" added a drowsy Rufus, between a shrug and a sip.

"Not at all! Cloud will be extremely well taken care of." rejoiced Aerith, petting William under the table.

I heard their voices, I heard my name, but my eyes wouldn't turn away from him. Across the table, as I nervously, silently bit my nails, he haunted me.

Truth being told, I never got the chance to tell him I had been accepted – or rather, that I had applied to an arts school. I was simply too happy enjoying our time together to remember I did it. I apologised mercilessly of course, nearly promised I wouldn't leave on behalf of his forgiveness. I didn't though; I knew I wouldn't be able to live up to such oath.

We met a couple of days later, in the back of the Graveyard.

"Your mother said you've been out for hours…" I said, approaching him – "I knew you would be here."

Zack didn't say a word. I grabbed his knees, stopped them from rocking back and forth. He smashed his cigarette butt on the cold metal but did not move an inch away from me.

I waited. He wouldn't look at me.

"Are you angry?" I asked. He bit his lower lip, said nothing. "You'll have to talk to me eventually…"

"Explain me why, then." it was a dry, nonchalant response.

"I forgot…" I whispered.

He chuckled, sarcastic. "You forgot to tell me you were leaving."

"That's not it, Zack. I—"

His voice was smooth, his words ruthless. "You're leaving me. That's just it." he said.

I tightened my grip around his knees and pulled myself closer. He turned his eyes away.

"I'm not, I'm not. I promise I'll come visit every free day I get!" I said, nearly out of my breath.

"You'll come visit?" he squinted, his cold hands pushed mine away – "What makes you think I'll be waiting for you? What am I, your cheap wife waiting for you to come home every once in a while?"

He was growing upset and angry and cold. And I deserved all of it.

"I didn't mean it that way…"

"Well, go fuck yourself Cloud!" he fought back, still without shouting.

I watched him turning his back on me and heading away. Any other day I would have left him go, but that morning I couldn't possibly believe he was really leaving me behind. Not like that, and certainly not because of me.

I ran after him, called his name.

"Leave me the fuck alone!" he yelled.

"You can't be serious, Zack. You can't!" I yelled back.

Suddenly he halted, turning around so quickly I nearly bumped into him. He clutched both my arms and leaned closer. I could see he was looking down at my lips as I tried to catch my breath, but I held silent.

"Look!" he wet his lips – "This was a mistake. This was a fucking, sickening, stupid mistake."

I narrowed my eyebrows, straightened my back. "What do you mean, sickening…?" I asked.

He smiled, slowly loosening his grip. It was like the wind never blew again.

"Kissing you was the most disgusting thing I've ever done."

Sickening, yes. I didn't leave my bed for weeks after that. I got literally sick. Maybe that is the hidden power of words. Words are never immoral, they are never wrong, they are never morbid. But they do hurt like metal, they hurt like blades. Words will hold your heart in one hand and shrink it dead. They will do it slowly, devastatingly, echoing against any silent moment.

And you die. To this day I'm sure people have died because of words.

"When Edea and I were little, Grace used to say a little bit of chocolate made everything better."

I didn't move from under the covers.

Joanna chuckled, very softly, cheerlessly.

"I don't have any chocolate with me… But I did buy you something that might cheer you up!"

I kept quiet, barely breathing at all. She tried to tickle me, kissed my head and forehead, and I did turn to her, trying to avoid the blazing light that poured inside from the window.

"I'm sorry I didn't give you this sooner but, well, this was when I could afford it." she said.

I had to sit up straight as she handed me a heavy, badly-wrapped gift in the shape of a rectangle. I unwrapped it in silence to find the most expensive thing I had ever, doubtlessly, owned. It was a varnished wooden case, the most polished-looking drawing kit I've ever seen.

I looked at her in shock.

"Happy Sweet Sixteen, darling." she kissed my forehead again – "I hope it helps."

I knew Joanna could've never afforded something quite like that, not in one hundred years. I also knew Sephiroth, as a college teacher, earned quite well, but I sincerely doubted he would ever help her paying for it. Whoever did is still a mystery to me.

Brand-new material didn't exactly erase my memories, though it played a significant part in taking me out of bed and starting drawing again.

As autumn turned idly into winter, sketches of Aerith and her cats began to stuff Grace's living-room. And so did my portraits of Edea reading, Edea by the window, Edea smiling behind her knitted veil. I learnt how to draw strangers I saw on the streets, people I've known without getting to know them. I made up landscapes, I made up life.

I drew him. I always drew him. I kept those hidden under my bed in an old shoebox.

I also saw him often, more often than I would like it – or did I? He wasn't always laughing or around friends, but he would never look at me.

Yes, because I was disgusting. Or something.

"It's been over a month Cloud…" she muttered, laying her head on her forearm.

"Hum. He never took this long to talk to me…" I sent the marble over to her side of the table.

Ever since her mother left we had been able to spend a lot more time at her house. It was nice.

Aerith sighed. "Maybe he really moved on. I mean… his hormones, you see…?"

I squinted. "What? Are you implying he was just trying to get into my pants?"

She rolled her eyes, flicked the marble back to me. "I think you're too high-maintenance. And Zack seems complicated enough. He should go for something easy…"

"Well, that's a first." I said, sincerely shocked.

She chuckled. "I'm sorry, it came out a little off. I mean, I'm sure he likes you a lot but—"

"A guy has his needs. Right." I shrugged.

"Yes. Exactly. How did you know?" she showed me the tip of her tongue out.

"Edea has been giving me the same crap ever since I was twelve! Like Zack and I are that different."

She was clearly taken aback by my words. Deep inside I guess I was, too. Still, it was no less true. Zack would be eighteen in a few months: two years wasn't an impossible age difference. Our mindset should be pretty much alike. Of course he was always a few steps forward, he always got me thinking about complicated things, with complicated words, but how different could our needs be?

The mere thought of it made me almost bite the tip of my thumb until it bled.

"Cloud?" her voice sounded so distant, so distant I didn't understand she was right before me.

She kissed me, very softly and on the lips. I didn't move.

"What was that?" I asked as she returned to her seat.

"Did you feel anything?" she asked back, matter-of-factly.

"Your… lips?" I was just confused.

"Well, if that's all, I'm not sure your needs are the same as his." she said.

I squinted. "Do you like me?"

"Yes, of course. Like a puppy or a baby brother." she smiled and I knew she meant it.

I couldn't tell if she was right about everything else though, and it was not before January that I came to find the answer.

I had been staying at Grace's since New Year's Eve, after Joanna and Sephiroth moved to the city. Most of my things were already packed then, except from some of my clothing and a few books. I was really leaving though. My life in Vane began in two weeks. By then I had sold most of my landscape paintings and bought myself a plane ticket – it was still cheaper if I shipped off my bags a couple of days earlier, so Aerith's friend should take care of it when they reached land.

I was mentally and physically ready, excited even!

One day before the flight, as I finished packing my clothes, Edea called his name from the landing.

"Zack's here," she said.

They both made it to my room and the air automatically stiffened.

I felt numb and cold and broken all of a sudden. We didn't share a word.

"Eh, yeah, I'm picking Grace up at the casino. Be back in… two hours, maybe?" Edea was nervous.

I briefly looked at her and nodded. She left.

He waited for the front door to close shut. As Edea's car drove away, he came closer. He didn't say a word when he fell to his knees and enclosed my waist in his arms. I didn't touch him right away, but when I did ruffled his hair his embrace became human.

He tightened his grip around me.

"You have to forgive me, you have to forgive me." he wasn't crying or begging or yelling.

I nodded. "I will…" I said, simply and quietly.

He uncovered my stomach and kissed me. His lips were cold, his breath was chilling. It was him.

Finally, he rested his forehead on my belly. "I never meant those words, Cloud…"

I sat down in front of him, "You shouldn't have said them then…!" I said.

"I wanted you to feel miserable like I did…" he bent his knees and nearly covered his face.

"Mission accomplished."

"I know I'm a piece of shit, Cloud…" he moved his hands a lot, growing uneasy – "I know I don't deserve you but I can't stand losing you. I can't and I won't."

He reached for my free hand and began playing with my fingers. It was unfair.

"But I am leaving. Whether you like it or not." I tried to be safe.

He chuckled. "Yeah… But as long as you forgive me I won't go anywhere…" a pause, "I won't go anywhere either way."

He leaned on to kiss me and I let him. It was so unfair, oh so unfair. After a while, he pulled himself up and dragged me towards the bed. He lied on top of me. It was innocent.

"Here. You have to remember this." he said, kissing my forehead.

I almost felt like laughing. "What?"

"You and me. On your bed. Like this!" he explained, very serious.

I smiled. "As long as you don't crush me."

He sighed and made room to lie next to me. It was a small bed, after all… We fell silent for a while. Zack outstretched an arm to hug me and closed his eyes.

"You won't hurt me again…" I said. He kissed my exposed neck.

We didn't say it then – what it was – and maybe we would never do say it out loud.

But as his hand reached mine and our fingers intertwined with one another, we both knew.

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><p>.<p>

**Is it wrong that I love Zack more and more? And review, please? **

**EDIT: I'm getting pretty excited, writing the following chapters. Just tell me what you think about this so I can know how much/ if I've improved :)**


	10. Chapter 10

**It's so hard to keep it T-rated. But I love a challenge. Hope you enjoy.**

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><p>.<p>

"Have you decided on your order already?" every time I said it, the words came out the same to me.

Every time except for that one.

Life in Vane was a lot crowded, a lot busier than I was used to. That was probably what I missed the most about Little Traverse. After I got to learn my way around the subway though, the whole adaptation process became fairly easier. Funny how those things work.

The new school was in the heart of the city, a twenty-minute ride from the private campus.

One would think things happened quite fast… And Edea nearly forbade me to leave the house once she found I had got myself a part-time job at a small coffeehouse downtown.

"You have to worry about your studies, Cloud. And you're too young to work." she had complained.

"I'm only too young if it's illegal…" I smiled. An annoyed sigh came from the other end of the line.

"But didn't I tell you I would help you?" she insisted.

Yes, that much was true. But being financially supported when you want to breakthrough more than anything is a common misconception.

However, it was a little dumbstrucking to find that selling my paintings in the real world did not work.

When he turned around at the sound of my voice, I knew he wished for time to stop; for people to disappear. His eyes lingered and his voice faltered as if he had no idea of what to say next. He was like the dog on a leash that couldn't reach its water.

I held out a hand and he took it, in the briefest handshake. I don't think we had ever done it in our lives.

"How was your flight?" I asked, trying to keep it casual.

Zack shrugged, "Boring seems accurate. I had no idea the ocean was that big." he laughed, sarcastic.

"Huh? Where are your bags?" I asked, nearly mutely.

He squinted, amused. "Cloud, it's just a weekend… I brought everything I could possibly need."

I looked beside him to find a nylon messenger bag where too little of nothing could possibly fit. Only then and there did I realise what a two-day weekend really meant.

"Hey. We'll make the most out of it." his voice cut through my thoughts. I nodded.

"I'll be out in half an hour. Wanna drink something?" I asked – "It's on me. For the waiting and all…"

His lips parted in a malicious grin. "Oh, if you put it that way… Bring me the most expensive, non-alcoholic, sugar-based drink you have!" he said.

I tried my hardest not to smile as I left his table.

After all, I was a thirsty dog too.

That was the first time we saw each other since I left. It was also the second time I've heard his voice. Even though both Edea and Aerith constantly called the residential building asking for me, communication with Zack revealed to be fairly harder. I did call him once myself, but we spent thirty minutes breathing weakly against the silent phone line.

Neither of us knew what to talk about, though I reckon both of us knew what we wanted to say.

I knew I did…

During our first weekend together, the hardest part was to pretend. Well, to pretend our life was still the same. Three months, four months – whatever it was, it wasn't enough for things to change dramatically.

However, in the end they always did.

For the first time in my life I felt committed to something, something I could not fail. I never knew, though, if it was my future or my expectations, or if I was just overly devoted to my drawings.

All the beatings and the insults of my childhood felt distant enough for me to take them as experiments, almost as if I had never endured them myself, and I knew whatever bonded me to those back home was slowly, gradually developing, one way or another.

But Zack… he was always so powerfully embedded in my thoughts, there was no room for development. It was not like I fully understood the matter, but his image in my mind was still the same. And it hurt to think of him now as much as it had hurt before.

As I lay on my bed at night, unable to fall asleep, I often wondered what he was doing – what he had been doing so far, without me.

I would ask myself then if it was even humanly possible to miss someone so much.

"I can hear your thoughts from here. Shut up."

I blinked my eyes in the dark. It was one of those nights…

"What? Can't sleep." I retorted, sitting up. I tried to outline his shadow on the bed across the room.

He grumbled, turning his bedside lamp on. His chocolate-brown hair was a mess, but it was a good thing that his locks covered his angry, drowsy glare.

"I've been up since 6 in the morning, and I can't get to sleep with you constantly turning and shifting over there. These mattresses are fucking old and fucking noisy so, get a grip on yourself!" – he talked with a sullen face but not with a sullen voice, his eyes turned to the ceiling.

I waited in silence, until our eyes met under the half-light. I laughed.

Squall grumbled once again and turned off his lamp, as I slid under my covers and rested my arms behind my head, not ready to sleep yet.

Squall Leonhart was my new roommate, Aerith's old friend. He was also a sophomore, and I truly thought him a rival until he made it clear to me that painting was nowhere his concerns. He was a sculptor of some sort, which pretty much explained our messy dorm, even though he did spend an awful lot of time working on the terrace.

Sometimes, I would meet him up there myself, for the sake of fresh air.

"I don't mind, but you have to keep quiet." he advised me, rubbing the sweat of his forehead with the back of his hand. It was a chilly morning of February.

I nodded. "I don't usually talk while I draw, anyway…" I muttered.

He stared at me for a silent instant, his expression impossible to read, and resumed his work with the sandpaper around a small wooden figure.

He collected tones of unfinished ones.

Like Aerith had warned, Squall really was of a bitter humour, with a strange obsession over people taking off their shoes before getting in the house. A family trait I reckon…

Still, it was easy for us to like each other from the beginning, since I talked too little and he barely ever talked at all.

He knew I had someone coming over, that last weekend of March, and though I never asked him to leave us alone, he just did.

"It must feel a little weird…"

"Hum…" I bit the side of my ring finger – "It was at first, but now we get along just fine."

Zack pressed my knees between his. "Yeah, I can tell…"

I chuckled, pinching his shin to get rid of his grasp – "How _could you_ tell? You haven't even met him."

"Yeah…" the bed creaked all over as he sat up.

I kept my knees up, and the shadows prevented me from the full look on his face. I knew he was still musing about it, nevertheless. It was his body language, the timbre of his voice…

"Zack…?" I muttered, sitting up in front of him.

"Hey, you don't happen to have a photo of the guy, do you?" he asked, half-excited all of a sudden.

"What?" I frowned – "No, of course not."

He chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. "Good then." he said.

It was late into the night. Squall could be anywhere, I really didn't think of it.

All things considered, that might have been our very first night together and all by ourselves. It didn't feel romantic or premeditated or awkward; I wasn't even dressed up for the occasion, in my plain jeans and sweatshirt, my blond locks an unfortunate mess. After a while, it even stopped hurting – to think of him. It was like the previous months never came to be and we were still on Chocobo Street, in my room of the size of a pantry.

"Cloud?" he whispered, his eyes turning to the window – "Do you ever feel like telling? About… us?"

My eyes must have widened in surprise. "What's there to tell about us?" I repeated.

He raised a dark eyebrow at me. "Are you serious?"

"I dunno…" I shrugged, confused. He seemed genuinely serious about it, but so was I.

We held in silence for a while longer, the only light around us coming from outside, from the streetlamps and the flashy, moving headlights. Finally, I remembered where I was. The street noises, the wind, the shutting of doors, the giggles across the wall – I could hear them so perfectly, so loudly in my head.

His hand outstretched in front of me. "Come here."

I sat on my knees and reached out for his fingers. Long, gentle fingers. Cold, lately he was always cold. And my nails were so terribly-looking I nearly withdrew my hand immediately.

Still, once he got hold of it, I knew he would never let it happen.

He kissed my open palm. His voice felt heavy. "You're like a drug…"

I clenched my fist. "Don't use that word…"

"I said I would try to stop, remember?" he threw the tip of his tongue out, pulling me closer.

It was easy to give in to him when he looked into your eyes and read every lingering feeling behind their surface. It was simple to lose when he reached for your skin and kissed your cheeks. It was painful to let go when he nibbled your earlobe, when he breathed against your neck. It was harder to pull away when he got greedy and you got caught.

He slid his cold hand under my sweatshirt. "I missed your scent." he muttered.

I believed I frowned at those words, wondering why he would never say the words I wanted to hear.

He would carelessly say he missed a lot of things, but he never said he missed me.

Were we ever that close, I thought…

He chuckled against my lips. "You can touch me too, you know?" he said, his aqua-green eyes smiling at me in that sprite-like attitude of his. Why could I see them so perfectly?

I shook my head, very quietly, assertively.

He nodded. "Ok then. But I can touch you, can't I?"

"Makes me uncomfortable… when you talk like that so casually…" I tried to keep my voice as low and manly as I could.

"Yeah…" he whispered. Deep inside I knew I was hurting him.

And yet, it was still so hard to pull away. When he stopped, your heart would falter. Rejection was the worst part of it.

When I woke up, he was gone. No note left.

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><p><strong>.<strong>

**I hope this is good enough to update. I probably should focus on Cloud's new life in Vane but then I thought: the hell with it. Things will happen the way they need to happen.**

**Reviews are very much appreciated.**

**ALSO, if you have an interesting wordpress account feel free to leave a note. I'll be working on my page soon and I want to collect as many interesting blogs as I can. Lol. **


	11. Chapter 11

**Thank you so much for the Reviews, the Favourites, the Follows. This is for you.**

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><p>.<p>

There were only two people who ever wrote me letters. One of them was Joanna, because her new shifts were complicated. The other was him, because talking on the phone was useless. He didn't do it on a weekly basis or anything of the sort. Hell, it was hard enough to get him to write me once a month. I never demanded him to, of course. Embarrassing, was it?

They were always pretty much the same. The greeting was short, with my name only, and he constantly wished for everything to be going well. He talked about his time with Cid too, how it was to help out the guy's old man in his car repair workshop. Once or twice he would say he missed the Graveyard, but the words slithered in and out quite shortly, unimportantly.

In every letter, there were always some scratched out words in the middle of the compact text, which began to bother me after a while…

And even though I knew I wasn't supposed to, one day I tried to read them.

As I held the front of the letter against the window, against the sunlight, some of those words could nearly talk to me. _Kiss you_._ Touch you_. _Hold you_. I could easily picture him writing those down, cringe at their sound and scratch them out. I would have done it myself, if I never thought it through before writing down my replying letters – the result was always an half-detailed and formally boring inventory of my days in Vane.

Reading the hidden words, I nearly gave up halfway until I met with the last paragraph. He was describing a dream – a nightmare that he had a couple of days before writing me, where I died and died, time and time again. At first it was messy and made little to no sense at all, but I knew Zack was enjoying himself as he described every sordid detail. He made himself quite clear about that.

However, after reading the words – the words that he scratched out over and over, like a blade cursing through a beating heart – the whole paragraph suddenly made sense. I doubt I even understood, back then, how much sense he made…

_I want to make love to you_, he said.

I want to… _Make_ _love_ to you, he said again.

I didn't recognise the sound of those words, but reading them under Zack's handwriting, no matter how fidgety, filled me with a warmth I had never experienced before. Almost instantly, I clutched the thin paper sheet in my hand and reduced it almost entirely.

I wanted those words to be my words. And I wanted them to be mine. Franticly and nearly without thinking, I left my small wooden desk at the corner of the room and run to the door, locking it with no sound. It was mad and I could almost laugh now at how desperate I must have looked. But those words, the hidden words… I needed to make them disappear before Zack even tried to take them back. He was unstable, he could try anything.

In the end, was I really a drug? Were I true to myself more often and I would swear I was addicted.

I had been addicted for so long I couldn't breathe anything else.

Kadaj pointed that out quite frequently, actually. He poked me between my eyebrows and complained at my brooding face. You're hooked – he would say, not knowing half of it.

One day, I asked him to stop.

"Well, I'm sorry if it annoys you but _you are hooked_." he said, stressing the words like he owned every purpose of reason.

I squinted. "What can you possibly know about my life to keep saying things like that?" I asked, upset.

He shrugged, playing with his bubblegum around his fingertip, and resumed his reading.

In order to keep my scholarship, I knew I needed to work twice as hard as anyone. Every spare time I had on my hands was, therefore, put to good use in the local library or it the park, where I had learnt to improve my landscape paintings and portraits.

This was where I came to meet Kadaj, a lonesome figure I was never sure how to deal with. I didn't know where he lived, if he studied or how old he ever was, but he did take a sudden interest in my drawings and I didn't push him away.

Playing the drag queen wasn't the fashionable hit of the nineties, but Kadaj could still pull it off quite well. I assumed it was only normal, in such a big city and all. If felt eerie at times, but I never blamed him for it. He wore velvet leggings and pointy oxford shoes, his silver hair usually adorned with a couple of hairpins or feathers. I guessed Grace would've read a lot of herself in him…

But Kadaj knew nothing of Grace, or Traverse, or Zack. He always talked a lot, mostly to himself, but he never asked about my life.

Every sunny afternoon, if I had no work waiting at the coffeehouse, I could find him outside in the local park, always on the same stone bench. He would be reading Wilde – a skeletal leg dangling in the air –, or flirting with the girls across the gravel path.

An intriguing creature, I always thought, and it came to me quite as a shock when Squall said he had no idea who he was.

"Really? He really stands out, that's why I asked." I explained, very briefly.

Squall scratched his head, biting the end of his scalpel. Recently, he had been playing with clay a lot.

"Nope, doesn't ring a bell." he said, short and simply, after giving it some thought.

"Hum. Alright." I let the subject die as I tried to focus on the Pre-Raphaelites. I never cared, particularly, about people, no matter how flamboyant they looked.

Little did I know then, Kadaj was reserved to do very interesting things in the future.

Little did I know then, that in five years or little more I would turn on the TV to learn of his death, in a motel room, where he had been found by an old gatekeeper, naked and with a bullet to his head. TV itself must have grown a little taste after that, for I don't recall ever seeing another silverhead recoiled before his bathtub, emotionless green eyes open – in his left temple, a dark scarlet hole exhaling blood from within. So much for Marylyn's overdose.

"_Gentlemen prefer Blondes_ wasn't a very good picture," was Edea's response every time I used that analogy. And I would smile, even to myself, each time I heard her voice inside my head.

"No, it wasn't." I muttered, alone, like I would have muttered back at her, were she there.

Life in Vane was lonely sometimes…

Squall never introduced me to people, despite Aerith's pleas. He never introduced himself to people, so one could only hope so much.

"He's really useless, isn't he?" she once cried over the phone, her voice slightly more subtle than I remembered.

"Really, it's fine. I talk with enough people already!" I said, unaware of how much of it was true.

"Well, you really have to if you want to survive the following years…" she insisted.

I laughed, "It's ok, I mean it. I may struggle a little bit now, but it will be fine." I said.

The machine asked me for another coin and only then did I try to remember why I had rushed out to call her. Because I missed her, maybe? How lame could that be. I really saw no other reason, though I would never confess it out loud. The old lady behind me, waiting to use the phone booth for nearly ten minutes now, gently tapped her walking-stick on my heel.

It was starting to drizzle again, I noticed…

"I have to head back now. My turn to buy dinner!" I laughed, almost bragging.

She chuckled, genuinely, on the other end of the line. I knew right away _that_ was the reason I called.

"Take care, Cloud. And please forgive Leon's lack of courtesy. You see, he is quite—"

"Please don't say bipolar. One's more than enough!" I interrupted.

"You mean Zack?" she laughed – "Leon is nothing like Zack, sweetie. I just hope—" a rumble of thunder, at the distance, cut off her words.

"What?" I asked. The drizzle was growing stronger. I remember it was only the 5th or 6th of April.

"I said, I just hope you won't find that the hard way!" Aerith nearly screamed now, to be heard, but her voice didn't sound half as threatening as her actual words. Indeed, she could've been smiling.

I only tried to understand it afterwards, a couple of weeks after that phone call. I got no answer though, because for one reason or another Squall wouldn't let go of it.

I, for one, wouldn't think of it twice anyway. It would be tiresome if I did.

It was half-past nine on a wet Wednesday night, and I was soaked to my bones as I threw my scarf, my jacket and anything else I could possibly carry on my bed.

"Fuck this rain! This is not normal!" I yelled, reaching for my ugly old jumper. It smelt like home.

A chuckle rose from the back of the room. "You're unusually late, aren't you?" he asked.

"Hum. Work." I shrugged – "We held a birthday party today. Kids everywhere!" I grumbled, oddly upset.

I ate alone like I usually did, around the small coffee table, making little effort to even taste the cold spaghetti noodles Squall had kindly ordered. Then it was only silence for a while, with him away on his corner rasping and moulding clay.

Only later would he come to me and loose an open envelop on my lap. As I looked up, his fingers played through his brown locks.

"My name came on it too so I read it." he said. Then, very shortly – "Plane tickets."

I frowned at the unexpected surprise. Yes, plane tickets. To Little Traverse. In two weeks it would be Easter break, so it was only normal for me to go home. I never understood why Squall had been invited to come as well, though I figured Aerith to be somewhat involved…

Aerith. That was the very first time I wanted to ask Squall about her, about their relationship, but his eyes ultimately told me not to. Not yet. And thence my doubts died in vain.

As Little Traverse approached, so did Zack – in the most unpredicted way.

"So, you telegraph now?" I asked, during one of the following rainy afternoons, as soon as he picked up.

"Didn't know how to make you call…" he said.

I smiled. "Call this number and ask for me. Someone will get me down here."

"Right." a short pause – "You're really coming?" he asked, very quietly, but in what sounded like a search for breath.

I sat on the metal stool beside the booth. Nodded, – "Yeah. How did you know?"

"Edea told me. I thought… Well, I can pick you up at the train station if you want." he said.

"How?" I asked, my voice denouncing my sudden excitement.

Zack wouldn't answer, of course. When he laughed, I wondered how much time had it been since I last heard such captivating sound. We agreed he would be picking us up then, and I was yet to give him the precise hour upon which we were to arrive.

I didn't tell him right there Squall was coming, partially because it didn't really matter since he was Aerith's problem. I don't think I gave it too much thought then, though maybe I should have.

Until Easter break he would call almost every day. To this day I don't know what changed regarding our communication problem, but at least we didn't spend thirty minutes immersed in absolute silence.

I talked about my school projects and he pretended to care. He talked about life in old Chocobo Street and I laughed, genuinely, at every word he said. I also knew he made up a lot, trying to keep the news fresh for me. Truth being told, Little Traverse was never an interesting place, and my leaving had no impact, made no difference, mattered to no one.

I once felt the need to ask him about those words; the scratched out words in his letters. I postponed the question because it was too late into the night, but Zack never called me back after that, nor bothered to accept my calls.

Only later did I come to understand why.

"It became too hard. You know, boys his age…" – I was twelve all over again and Edea would lecture me likewise, even over the phone.

But I wasn't twelve.

It just happened that one night, when Zack wanted to hear my voice, my dorm was empty. Unwillingly, I broke my silent promise and no one got me down to the lobby to receive his call.

You see, I was sixteen years-old, and one day, finally, Squall Leonhard introduced me to people.

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><p><strong>Geez, this was weak! I promise something much much better next time.<strong>

**Review, please? :) **


	12. Chapter 12

**This chapter is for Zack. Finally.**

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><p>.<p>

In the end, Squall didn't accept Aerith's invite.

"But I'm keeping the plane ticket." he said, saving it in his nightstand drawer as I packed my bag. Said it was just in case it was interchangeable, but I don't think it was.

I was relieved that he didn't come – took an awful lot of tiresome work from my hands, somehow. And I knew Zack would appreciate it too, as we crossed the lonesome, silent roads that were to take us home. He owned a pick-up truck now, had himself restored it to life at Cid's repair workshop. It was of a strange yellow-mustard, and it didn't have a name yet.

For some reason, I felt strangely upset when I learnt Aerith had been the first one to take a ride.

"Really? So you two are friends now?"

He shrugged, answering with a chuckle, "There's no one else to talk to around here." he said.

I didn't ask him what he meant. I guess I was afraid to…

As we drove past the Lower District, I snuggled in my scarf and turned my eyes to the window. There was the same lingering, heavy cloud coming from the coal factory in the industrial area, its smoke of a menacing black, swirling up towards the sky. Edea would later explain to me how that was affecting the local workers, who no longer relied on their lungs only.

"They should close that goddamn place, people can hardly breathe in there, for Christ' sake!" she yelled.

"But it's the major source of employment in town!" argued a sensible Miss Scarlet.

She spent most of her time at Grace's now, though it shouldn't be for long. They were moving to Costa del Sol, to the seashore, sometime in May. For the sake of Scarlet's acting career, see. It must have been tough to succeed back then as an underground actress, with so many interesting things going on in the world. On the other hand, the silky blonde hair and dazzling blue eyes might have helped.

Curious how that worked. From my childhood into my puberty, things scarcely changed. I didn't have many friends, I didn't stand out in school and I never had a girlfriend. I was bullied a lot – but life, for better or worse, was quite stable. Now, four months after I moved into a completely different place, everything was changing at a decade's pace. Except for him.

And Chocobo Street lied so uncommonly quiet at twilight, I barely recognised it once I got there.

Time was taking its toll, especially on Grace, who I noticed to talk of nothing else but her days as the beautiful redhead she once were, with her expressive dark eye that could broke any man's heart.

One night, giving in to an old habit of hers, she asked me to take her rocking chair to the porch so she could smoke her cigarettes in peace. Edea would be all over her if she saw it, of course. It was frizzing outside and I didn't want to stay, but her hand got hold of me before I could say anything else.

"Your mother is pregnant." she said, her voice hoarse. She wasn't looking at me.

I frowned. "Is that possible?"

She nodded, with a grin on her tiny, wrinkled lips. "You don't need love to make babies, Cloud…"

Yes. That much I should have known. Married couples made a lot of things that took no part in love, whatsoever. And what could possibly need love all the time, anyway? Only his laugher crossed my mind in that moment, his turquoise-blue eyes smiling at me through the dark-blue locks, and a smirk on his lips that held nothing back.

Did _you_ need love all the time, I wonder…

I kept my eyes staring ahead, trying to reach the darkness before us. It was a house, but I couldn't tell.

"Grace… What do I do now?"

She took a long drag on her cigarette, tried to chuckle between a cough, – "They will always be your family, kid. Even if they leave."

I bit my thumb, lost in thoughts. "Then, you think she'll leave me behind…? Like her mother did…?"

"You know I love both my daughters, Cloud." she shrugged in her increasingly smaller figure. "But I love you more, and I want you prepared in case they kick you in the butt!"

Classy words. Classy words from a classy lady. And I knew what that meant, even if the unborn child came to suffer from the same hands that I did. But I couldn't cry. Not for me and definitely not for that baby. I wouldn't cry even if Joanna left me.

"People leave other people all the time." he concluded.

I heard his voice struggling from under the Wrangler he had been working on for an hour. Now and then he would curse behind gritted teeth, between the metallic rustling of tools. There was no one else in the workshop that morning, and as I later came to understand, Zack had been officially employed there for over a month.

I kicked his feet, very lightly. "Being passive-aggressive today, are we?" I asked.

"I'm happy they're gone, if you ask me!" he answered, bending his knees – "Least chances of you getting to live with them again."

"Hum…" it was a nod – "Guess I'm officially without a house, though." I said, my smile quickly fading.

"Yeah well, you live with Squall now…!"

He tossed an open-ended spanner to the ground, catching my attention, and pushed the car creeper from under the vehicle. The back of his hand would leave a trail of oil each time he rubbed his forehead. I laughed, genuinely, at the look on his face.

"You're all sweaty." I sniggered as he stood up. Zack threw me a death glare.

The wind was lifting outside, but the heat in that place was unbearable. Around me, the vicious smell of paint, diesel oil and oxidation stuffed my nose, and it took me a while to let go of that uncomfortable feeling of vertigo.

He cleaned his dusty hands and shoved the handkerchief in his back pocket.

In silence, I watched him as he removed the oil-tainted t-shirt and disappeared into the small cubicle I knew to be the toilet room.

"Feels like you own the place." I raised my voice so he could listen.

"It's ok. No one would mind see me half-naked." he laughed, his voice echoing outside.

I finally stood up, followed his steps and came to lean on the wooden frame that secured no door. Inside, the worn-out walls and ceiling damp made the place feel obnoxiously claustrophobic. I could see his profile on the cheap, dirty mirror above the lavatory, but I don't think he noticed.

"Hey, Zack…?"

"Hum?"

"Do you ever think of me?" – I wondered for how long I was holding that in.

He turned around eventually, his hand on his zipper. He wouldn't look at me as he washed his hands, as he ruffled his hair, as he asked me to step aside. He wouldn't look at me when I reached out for his arm and made him stop right in front of me.

"Do you?" it was a low murmur. Very calmly, he leaned over and placed his lips on my cheek.

"Sometimes." he was smiling as he pulled me away.

Zack himself felt a little claustrophobic, constantly avoiding my eye contact, touching me the least possible. He wasn't upset – at least he never sounded upset –, but it felt different. And I felt like punching him sometimes, only to get a reaction. I wanted to ask him if it was still me.

How selfish would that be…

Later that week I would try and talk to Aerith about it, utterly and humiliatingly self-conscious. As I understand it, she had become some kind of a _demoiselle au pair_ to Zack's distant, alien mind.

I felt like I was being replaced by both of them, but I asked her anyway…

"What? No, I don't think he has been sniffing lately." she could still smile while she said it.

I shrugged – "Sorry. Just thought I should ask."

"Yes, well…" she returned her eyes to her book, "If anyone can know that for sure, it's you. Zack would never lie to you."

Yes, he would. Zack lied to me all the time.

He would lie to me every time I asked him about the bruises on his chin, on his arms, on his back, saying he was awfully clumsy around the workshop. He wasn't clumsy but apparently he fought a lot, at the Urban Jungle – a well-known place in the whole of Midgar for supporting and inciting street fights among desperate kids. Edea said it was the government's fault, of course. Because of the war.

I guess they paid them sometimes; otherwise they would leave them there to bleed.

I believe I was no older than fourteen when Barret first told me about it. And Zack too.

"You two could probably get in for free." he said in his warm voice, "That's how they run the business."

"Who would go to a place like that?" I asked, scratching my nose with a clenched knuckle.

"Yeah, 'heard it can get pretty bloody!" he laughed, and I laughed too because I knew I was safe. Zack didn't laugh. Back then he was always a little suspicious of Barret.

"You never tried it, did you?" he asked, and of course Barret said he hadn't. Because Barret was cut out to do much greater things.

Three years thereafter, I could hardly believe my ears when he told me he had tried it once or twice out of innocent curiosity.

He laughed, folded his arms behind his head – "C'mon, Cloudy. It's not like I can't walk anymore."

We were in the back of his truck, pulled over somewhere outside the city. I can no longer recall what drove us there, even though I knew I liked those moments away from everyone but him. And the sky was clean. It had been raining all week.

"I can't keep up with you, Zack! What are you trying to do, kill yourself?" I yelled in disbelief.

"Didn't I just tell you I was curious?" he couldn't stop laughing.

"But…" I sat back on my knees, "Why would you be? About something like that…?"

He shrugged, his eyes closed. "It's not like I do it for free, you know? Or on a daily basis…"

"Still… I'm sure your mother will think it's my fault when she sees this…!" I took my fingers to his jaw line, touched the mark of fresh blood that would shape into a beautiful, everlasting scar. A cross.

Zack stood up so violently at the sound of my words I nearly lost my balance.

"Why would it be your fault?" he was frowning, his voice breaking.

"Well… just, just think about it…" I stuttered – "Weird things are happening ever since I left."

He chuckled in a sneer full of sarcasm, "Don't flatter yourself so loudly Cloud. It doesn't suit you. There's nothing _weird_ going on! Just so you know, you hadn't left yet when I went down there for the first time. Because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not happening!"

"You don't need to yell…" I muttered. I could see the light slowly returning to his eyes.

He sighed, lying down again. "I really am fine, Cloud. You know I hate when people try to butt in!"

"If you say so…" I turned around, stretched my legs forward.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and we were back to our silent selves again. It happened naturally, really. I think everything about our relationship happened quite naturally. Maybe then I just wasn't sure what kind of relationship we actually had…

"You really have to leave again?" he asked, quietly and out of a sudden.

"Yea…"

"Do you like it there?" I could tell he was smiling.

My eyes blinked in surprise as I turned to him. "Guess so. Why do you ask?"

"You should just come back." he shrugged, pulling the hemline of my sweater with little effort. I fell backwards and rested my head on his shoulder.

I was right though. In a couple of days Mrs Fair would be knocking on Grace's door, drinking lime tea with ginger crackers at our kitchen table, and subconsciously judging Edea's poor taste in furniture as she listened to the conversation, leaned against the kitchen worktop.

It didn't take her long to suggest it was my fault her son was always so glooming and not stepping his feet in the house for days.

"He's eighteen years old… It's about time he leaves the house, isn't it?" Edea tried to remain calm.

"To do what, with the life he leads?" she had a sympathetic smile on her lips. Then, looking at me – "Can you believe he never brought one single girl to meet us? Even that good-for-nothing Highwind could find himself a woman, and my Zack can't?"

"I'm sorry…" I whispered, feeling heavier and heavier in my heart.

Edea lit up a cigarette and handed the pack to the woman, who slowly repeated the gesture. I couldn't look at her as she blew the cold smoke out, biting the edge of a cherry-red nail.

Her eyes were his eyes…

"Let him make his own mistakes, Candace. He's not a baby anymore."

After that, I strongly avoided being alone with him. I felt so guilty, so powerless. So lonely. And there was no place like home, they always said. Why did I want to run away?

It was not until my last night in Little Traverse that I finally understood what was so devastatingly missing. It was not the cure for guilt, you see. It was even less the cure for loneliness. But I doubt I had ever felt that much strength consuming me.

It was late into the night when he stopped by the house, his knuckles quietly knocking at my bedroom window. Unfortunately, in a house where walls were paper-thin, a lot of caution wouldn't make much of a difference.

And I wasn't even asleep yet…

"You're like a sitting duck. Go put something on, I could be a fucking rapist." he chuckled, his spiky locks hidden under his hoodie, a dark shadow casted upon his eyes.

"Won't you come in?" I asked, dressing up the first pair of jeans I found in a messy pile of laundry. For how long had it been there?

He shook his head. "Hurry up, there's something I want you to see before you leave."

He smashed his cigarette with an old, worn out converse before we both got into his pick-up truck, parked before the rusty gate to the porch. He offered me bubblegum but I refused.

We didn't share a word through the entire way, but it didn't take us long to pull over again, in front of the bright yellow sign I knew so well – the capital red letters reading NO TRESPASSING. It was a norm we had always ignored; but then again, Zack and I ignored a lot of norms…

In silence, he didn't lead me to the usual spot but run, instead, towards the far off back where the trains were a little less decomposed.

It smelt of rain.

"You need help or somethin'?" I yelled, playfully. He was climbing up the heavy iron door to one of the longest goods wagons, struggling to slide it open with his foot.

"Nah. Been doing this for a while now!" he smirked, finally getting it done.

The strong scent of burnt wax caught my attention as he helped me inside. He lit up a candle, set it down on a wooden box.

In the half-lit darkness I could tell there were wool blankets and other bed clothing somewhere in the centre, like a nest, near which stood one of those fashionable silvered cassette decks every spoiled brat would carry around lately. There were Coke cans nearly in every corner, but it was the lighter and the spoon that immediately caught my attention.

"So this is where you hide…" I run my finger on the cold, silver handle.

He chuckled. "Not as much as you might think. I crash at Cid's most of the times!"

How I hated those words.

I turned on my heels to watch him yawn and sitting on the pile of blankets. I don't think Zack will ever know how much I wanted to punch him in that moment.

"I don't get it." I frowned, walking to him – "Why would you do that? Why would you do _this_?"

"What?" he cocked his head a little.

"Well… You have your own wage, you do work full-time after all! And not only that but your old man has a lot of money too so… y'know, is not like, well, not like you even need to work…" – I don't believe I was used to talk like that; I shoved my hands in my pockets, not to bite my nails.

He squinted. "So?"

"So…? So, you can buy yourself a house… I guess. Or not, if you don't want to… but—"

"Cloud."

His voice sounded so far away, so distant. It was unbearable not to find his eyes in the dark.

I squatted before him.

"Cloud…" it was a whisper now.

"It's nothing, really…" I muttered back. "I don't care. I'm not trying to take control or anything…"

He laughed, running a hand through my hair, and I breathed out, freely, for the first time in two weeks. I had no idea I was holding it in.

"Why would I even want a house now?" he asked, pulling my forehead to his chest – "You said you would live with me when we were older, remember?"

I did, didn't I? It was Christmas morning…

"I'm just waiting for you to be older!" he laughed, pulling away.

His hands clutched my shoulders and he leaned over, capturing my lips. Or did I give them to him? He tasted like him, like mint. His hands, like his tongue, were so cold I would flinch every time. But I still surrendered to his touch like I had always done. Only it was different this time.

"You won't stay if I ask you to, will you?" he asked. I shook my head in his hands.

"You know I would never do that, Zack."

He smiled. "And you'll never understand how much I need you…"

"Teach me." I asked, sitting next to him and bending my knees – "I've asked you before, please teach me how to understand. You know… you know I don't know how to do this…!"

It was undeniably true. Zack was always better than me. I couldn't even call things by their name. I wanted him. I want you, I want you. How do you say, how can you say that to someone?

To someone you know you'll end up leaving…

And what if he left me first? I instantly reached for his hand in the dark.

His voice whispered my name against my skin and it was a thrill I had never experienced before. I felt no restraint as he took off my shirt, kissing me, biting me – every moan a search for peace, a cry for help. I don't think I knew then that I needed him in such a way, I didn't know I needed him so much more. Because it was so much more than lust…

I never understood lust.

And it was his greed, his jealousy, his dependency when I lay down under him, on his nest, his bruised and naked torso feeling uncommonly heavy against mine. But I could feel his smile.

"Can you touch me now?" his voice was painful in my ears. It was raining again.

I wanted him to take me, to crush me, anything but leaving me behind.

I didn't want that feeling anymore! It was devastating -

To feel alone.

* * *

><p><strong>It's the longest chapter yet. How worthy was it? Review, please? :)<strong>

**Also, I'd like to apologise for the lack of consistency in Cloud's behaviour, but I guess they are both pretty inconsistent from day one. That's the major reason why this has been such a challenging adventure. **

** Skiestrife: **I can't really tell how deep in the relationship are they myself, but I hope this chapter helped even some things out. We have to keep in mind falling in love doesn't work the same way for everyone, and try to understand them thusly. Eheh. As for your request, I don't know how intimate they can be in a T-rated fic. Hopefully this is already something. More will come so, keep tuned and thank you for the great support.

**And thank you all for reading, V.**


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